Hi Everyone,

Summer is here, and we've been busy at AISIG in Q2! It has been great to meet many of you at conferences and seminars and we are excited to see the growing number of AISIG members! In this newsletter, we'll cover what we’ve been doing, what's new in AI research and practice, and what's coming up. As always stay tuned for more!

1. Our Q2 Accomplishments 

• Launch of Expert Corner

  • • In April, we launched our monthly video series “Expert Corner” which features notable experts who bring insights into research methods on AI in Marketing. These monthly videos are about 60-minute pre-recorded sessions, especially useful for marketing scholars and PhD students who want to explore AI methods in their research. We kicked off the video series with U. of Notre Dame Professor Shijie Lu’s research on “Live Streaming and AI”. The second video of the series showcases Arizona State University Professor Joseph Ryoo’s work on “Topic Models”. We will continue to launch these monthly videos for the rest of the year. Those who are interested in contributing to these monthly videos and discussing their research on AI/ ML applications in Marketing, please contact Professor Shane Wang, Virginia Tech, at xswang@vt.edu.

• Webinar on Using AI in Academic Writing

  • On June 10th, Karin Horler, Senior Copy Editor at the AMA provided her expertise and insights on using AI in academic writing on a live webinar.

• AMA-AISIG Social Media Engagement, Reach, and Membership

  • Through this past quarter, we engaged with the broader academic and industry community through our social media handles on LinkedIn and X. We currently have 80+ subscribers on our website and 235+ members on our LinkedIn page. 

  • Please connect with us and spread the word within your network: 

    • Contact — AMA Artificial Intelligence SIG (aisig-ama.org)

    • LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/g72iDMPm

    • X: https://lnkd.in/gU_xxSDt

2. Conferences and Other Events in Q2

• Theory and Practice of Marketing or TPM (May 16-18)

  • 2024 Theory + Practice in Marketing (TPM) conference was hosted by the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business in May. TPM 2024 partnered with IJRM and its incoming editor (and our vice president) Koen Pauwels. TPM 2024 featured many interesting ongoing work on AI, ML, and other emerging technologies, such as robots and automation. Importantly, AMA AISIG was also present at the conference! It was exciting to be connected with many AI researchers, talk about AISIG and what we do.

  • Attendees/ Speakers from the Board: Koen Pauwels, Gizem Yalcin Williams

• Symposium on AI in Marketing at Wisconsin-Madison (May 3-4)

  • This is a new annual symposium on AI in Marketing organized by the Wisconsin School of Business and this was their first year. The symposium features the latest research by marketing scholars on the applications of AI and ML in marketing. The key research topics of this year’s symposium were in applications of multimodal data using deep learning models, usage of large language models (LLMs) in marketing research, and understanding customer needs, AI for pricing and purchase predictions, and other applications of generative AI in marketing. The detailed paper presentations can be viewed here: AI symposium schedule - Google Docs

  • Attendees/ Speakers from the Board: Shane Wang

• EMAC (May 26-31)

  • The EMAC conference was held this year in Bucharest, Romania. Among several noteworthy special interest groups, the conference hosted a SIG session on “Responsible Use of AI in Marketing” to delve into the ethical, practical, and strategic dimensions of leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) within the marketing domain. Additionally, there was a special session organized on quantitative marketing that featured important machine learning methods for unstructured data. The session was chaired by one of our SIG members Shrabastee Banerjee. 

  • Attendees/ Speakers from the Board: Koen Pauwels, Sharmistha Sikdar

• Marketing Dynamics (June 1-3)

  • MDC was held this year in Santorini, Greece. AISIG hosted two special sessions on the use of Gen AI in the marketing domain, including topics related to generating “Accurate” Online Reviews in the wine industry by Prasad Vana and the ban of social media users by Raoul Kübler. More details on upcoming AI Sessions at MDC in Goa, India, are coming soon.

  • Attendees/ Speakers from the Board: Kay Peters, Pankhuri Malhotra

3. What’s New in Research

• JACR special issue on Automation of Marketing and Consumption recently came out: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/jacr/forthcoming-9.3

• Wang, Xin (Shane), Neil Bendle, Yinjie Pan (2024), "Beyond Text: Marketing Strategy In A World Turned Upside Down," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, forthcoming. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11747-023-01000-x

4. What’s New in Practice

• The MIT Media Labs Conference, 2024 held in Boston, April 9th- April 11th, invited AI-rising stars as part of the event. Some of these start-ups are featured below. 

  • Tangify: Founded in 2022, this Boston-based start-up uses AI to determine patent protection requirements. The success of this start-up continues.

  • Toothly: An AI-powered platform that helps dentists make more accurate and faster diagnoses, and determines high-precision treatment options. 

• In Europe, among the top 10 AI start-ups to watch out for are:

  • Cyreen: A German start-up that uses AI built in shopping carts/trolleys to track in-store messaging impressions on shopper behavior. 

  • Dealcode: Another German start-up that uses AI powered technology to identify B2B sales leads, with more successful leads to sales conversions. 

5. Events and Conferences to watch out for (June - September 2024)

• Marketing Science 2024 (June 27- 29) ISMS Marketing Science Conference 2024 | UNSW Sydney

We are hosting a special session with talks and a panel called "AI-Driven Marketing in a Digital World" on Friday, June 28, from 10:20 AM to 11:50 AM in the Cockle Bay Room 2.

• AMA Summer Conference 2024 (August 16, Boston)

We are hosting an AISIG Intensive Workshop called “AI Applications & Research Avenues in Marketing: A Mixer with Academics, Corporations and Startups” that discusses the latest AI applications and research avenues in marketing. This workshop featuring startups, corporates, and academics will be held on Friday, August 16, from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM in the Simmons Room.

Best, 

The AISIG Board