CSI: Buffalo — Business students put AI under the microscope
The winning team presented "From Data to Victory: AI’s Role in Modern Sports." From left: Matt Skidmore, Blake Gallo, Devin Kowalski, Prof. Emerson, Cael Driscoll and Josh DiNicola.
Walk into Alfiero 205 on the last Monday of the semester and you’ll find a scene that looks more like a startup pitch than a college class.
Digital research posters scroll across the big screen. Students huddle around laptops. Conversations crackle with ideas about Hollywood budgets, Wall Street algorithms, AI-powered health care and what it all means for the future of business.
Welcome to CSI: Buffalo, short for Communication Scene Investigators, where students enrolled in “Communication Literacy for Business” are doing more than studying communication — they’re testing it, debating it and sometimes challenging their own assumptions.
The 2025 theme? Business Communication in Changing Times: AI Edition.
“It’s about more than writing a paper or giving a presentation,” says Cheryl Emerson, clinical assistant professor of organization and human resources, who teaches the course. “It’s about stepping into a real-world scenario, asking tough questions and discovering how AI is reshaping the conversations we have in every industry.”
And they didn’t just study AI — they worked alongside it.
Throughout the semester, students experimented with AI tools in their research, presentations and even self-assessments. Rather than focusing solely on polished grammar or mechanics, Emerson encouraged reflections on process and decision-making. The result? Some of the most thoughtful, candid student work she’s seen.
“I gave them freedom of choice, and that changed everything,” she says.
The projects spanned industries as diverse as the students themselves. One team examined how AI slashed production costs in Hollywood post-production. Another analyzed JPMorgan’s billion-dollar AI investments in trading and risk analysis. Health care teams explored AI’s role in cancer research at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, while others took on sports marketing, telehealth, gaming, real estate and even AI in casino gambling.
No topic was off the table.
“This was about bridging AI’s technical possibilities with its human impact,” Emerson explains. “The students learned firsthand how AI affects communication, trust, ethics and how business decisions are made in a world where AI often speaks before we do.”
The semester culminated in a digital poster showcase judged by faculty and staff with research and industry expertise. Students shared data, debated risks and explored AI’s power, and pitfalls, in front of an engaged audience, giving them an opportunity to flex their presentation and oral communication skills, as well. It was a confidence-building finale that underscored why communication remains at the heart of business leadership.
That’s the mission at the UB School of Management: equipping students to navigate the spaces where technology, strategy and human interaction collide.
From AI-powered negotiations in finance to ethical debates in health care, CSI: Buffalo captured what happens when the next generation of business leaders meets the next wave of innovation — head-on.
And as Emerson sees it, that’s exactly where they — and her teaching — belong.
This story was written by AI and edited by a member of the UB School of Management Marketing and Communications Office.