AI meets business: How researchers are closing the gap between innovation and impact
What happens when the power of AI meets the real-world messiness of business? At the UB School of Management, that question is more than academic — it’s a driving force.
Across projects that span corporate disclosures, financial fairness, disaster response and litigation risk, faculty are working at the intersection of research and practice, using AI as a tool for meaningful business insights.
Inho Suk, professor of accounting and law in the UB School of Management, is among those leading this charge. His work tackles a key challenge facing businesses and investors alike: navigating the flood of information in a way that reveals truth, not just trends.
Take corporate sustainability reports. Suk and collaborator Sibei Yan wanted to know whether companies use softer language in their voluntary ESG and CSR disclosures compared to mandated financial reports. Using AI models like FinBERT and ChatGPT, they analyzed reports from companies across China and Hong Kong and found exactly that. Managers often lean toward a rosier tone, especially when disclosure isn’t required. It’s a telling insight for investors trying to read between the lines and for regulators eyeing transparency.
But Suk didn’t stop there. As generative AI tools like ChatGPT hit the mainstream, he saw another opportunity: could these tools help narrow the information gap in financial markets? His research suggests they do. By making advanced analysis more accessible, AI seems to be leveling the playing field between retail investors and market insiders.
And when crisis strikes? Suk is exploring how firms communicate after natural disasters, using AI-driven sentiment analysis on SEC filings. The goal: to understand how disclosure tone influences a company’s ability to recover, financially and operationally, after catastrophe. It’s the kind of research with real consequences for risk management and investor confidence.
Even the ripple effects of AI itself aren’t off limits. Suk is analyzing how investors reacted when ChatGPT suffered an unexpected outage — a modern twist on how reliant markets may be becoming on AI-generated insights. And in yet another project, he’s developing an AI-powered model to predict litigation risk, a tool that could one day guide corporate strategy.
These aren’t isolated studies. They’re part of a broader movement at the UB School of Management to bridge the AI-research gap, connecting today’s cutting-edge technologies with tomorrow’s business realities and embedding AI literacy into how students, scholars, and business leaders think and work.
Because in business — as in life — AI isn’t just changing the tools we use. It’s reshaping the questions we ask.
And at UB, those questions aren’t theoretical. They’re shaping research, informing practice and preparing a new generation to lead in a world where business and AI are inseparable.
This story was written by AI and edited by a member of the UB School of Management Marketing and Communications Office.