Rustam Vahidov is a professor of supply chain and business technology management at the John Molson School of Business. He also holds the RBC Professorship in Interorganizational Governance of Information Technology.

Vahidov’s extensive research, having mostly to do with different artificial intelligence (AI) tools and techniques, has resulted in over 100 publications

AI is already having a large effect on business and management’

In terms of AI, what has your research focused on?

Rustam Vahidov:  I am focusing on the business applications of AI, including the use of autonomous software agents in negotiation, machine learning and decision support. Intelligent agents are types of software that are capable of performing tasks autonomously. Think of them as software robots. They have a range of potential applications in e-commerce and e-business research and practice.

Some of the areas of application include intelligent targeted advertising, customer shopping support, automated trading, bidding, supply chain operations management and intelligent products that can identify themselves and determine the path in their life cycles.

What has allowed AI to flourish in recent years?

RV: Established as a field in the 1950s, AI has been making a steady progress by developing and applying ingenious methods to various areas. I believe the reason for the current rise of AI in the context of business applications is the development of internet technologies.

First, the internet allowed businesses to digitize their processes, making it feasible for intelligent software agents to access and affect them directly, without human intermediary. Second, the abundance of data collected electronically by businesses facilitates intelligent analytics and decision-making.

What effects do you see AI having on business?

RV: AI is already having a large effect on business and management. It will mostly automate tasks that are automatable — those structured with well-defined standard operating procedures. However, in the places where judgment should be used, the responsibility remains with the human manager.

AI will complement rather than replace managers in decisions where that human judgment is needed. This includes, for example, what market to enter or which line of product to keep.

How will teaching about AI change?

RV: I think it is necessary for future business managers to know about the capabilities of AI. We should move beyond teaching basic concepts with which most people are familiar to more advanced topics such as AI data mining, data science and analytics.

How will AI impact our daily lives?

RV: It’s already changing the way consumers interact because a lot of customer support is done by software units instead of humans. This requires certain intelligence capabilities. AI has also been embedded in consumer products for a long time, for example in the logic systems of cameras.

Are there ethical implications when it comes to AI that need to be considered?

RV: The ethical responsibilities of AI should lie with human decision-makers. That’s one of the topics that requires careful consideration. For example, if the self-driving vehicles that run on AI have an accident, then who is responsible? AI is a helping tool that may not be held responsible for the ultimate decisions in tricky situations.

What about job loss cause by AI in the workplace?

RV: This has always been the concern with industrialization, back to the times when the first machines were used and mechanical processes were automated. The same was true with the introduction of software and enterprise resource systems. When processes are automated, people will lose jobs. The answer has always been that those people will move on to higher-level positions. Economies adapt and people manage to find different roles.