Experiences NOT exams

We can all agree that AI is here to stay—and it’s only going to become more powerful and integrated into our daily lives. (Disclaimer: I used AI to help edit this post.) We’ll soon be using it in ways we couldn’t have imagined when it first emerged.

As an educator, I can tell you that the initial concern was that students would use AI to cheat—writing essays with a prompt, answering assignment questions by simply pasting them into a chatbot. But aside from a few holdouts, I think most educators have moved beyond trying to ban AI outright.

From my perspective, the shift is toward creating experiences rather than just tests and assignments. In my digital marketing class, students now complete simulations instead of traditional exams. In my marketing research course, quizzes have been replaced with exercises where students analyze focus group data using AI tools. I’ve moved toward helping students learn by doing—not just memorizing—and I’m excited to keep developing these kinds of experiences.

In a few months, I hope to have even more to share.

Ideas for AI usage on campus

At the end of every academic year, faculty across campus come together for workshops aimed at helping us become better educators. This year, two workshops in particular stood out—and I made sure to attend both.

The first focused on how AI can enhance our teaching and everyday lives. Whether it’s redesigning a syllabus, brainstorming a more engaging assignment, or even figuring out what to make for dinner based on what’s in your fridge, AI has a role to play. I tested it out by running one of my class assignments—where students create webpages—through ChatGPT (my go-to AI tool). It gave me some practical, creative ideas for making the assignment more personalized and engaging for students. Thanks, ChatGPT!

The second workshop was about creating your own chatbot, which I found especially intriguing. The concept is similar to an oral exam: students respond to a prompt, and the chatbot follows up based on their answers. I’m planning to try this out in my own class. (If you’re curious, the platform we used is playlab.ai).

And yes—full disclosure—I edited this post and created the image above with a little help from AI, too.

Can AI be used to predict customer acquisition?

My colleague Michel Laroche (Concordia) are exploring how AI can be trained to identify where someone is in the sales funnel and whether they are more likely to purchase. For professional service firms (like a home improvement firm), prospective customers will communicate to the from the  firm what they want. For example, I may say that I want to remodel my master bathroom. Our research question is whether AI can look at these words to help predict whether a customer will accept the proposal and purchase from company. We recently presented this work at the AMA Winter Educators Conference in Phoenix, February 16, 2025. A copy of the presentation can be found here. Leveraging AI to predict customer acquisition – v1

Top 50 undergraduate business professors

Poets and Quants (a publication that focuses on business education) recently named me as one of the top 50 undergraduate business school professors of 2024. It was an honor to get this award and be nominated by my colleagues and students. These awards are given to individuals but they are a reflection of those around you. I’ve been extremely fortunate to have great graduate advisors at GWU, mentors at UMW, and lots of people around the world who helped me continually improve. I dedicate this award to my colleague and friend the late Gwen Hale who emphasized “don’t be a jerk”.  You can read the article here. 

Using AI to predict customer acquisition

 

If you have ever had a passing interest in digital marketing (or marketing) you’ve heard of the marketing funnel. Consumers at the top are gaining awareness while those at the bottom are most likely to purchase. The funnel shape because there are a lot more consumers at the top than there are at the bottom. When consumers approach a professional service firms they often communicate where they are in the sales funnel. For example, a customer may tell a contractor that they want to have their kitchen redone and they want the work done by the end of next month. Another consumer may approach the firm and say that they are exploring some renovations in their kitchen. Clearly, the former customer is further down the funnel than the latter. Research that my co-author (Michel Laroche) and I are currently pursuing examines how AI can use these words to determine where the customer is in the sales funnel. Once customers are identified in different parts of the funnel, the firm can use different marketing approaches.

Kashef Majid – Associate Professor of Marketing – University of Mary Washington

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