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C h u n h u a W u : U B C S a u d e r S c h o o l o f B u s i n e s s amounts of language data—about 5 trillion words, in the case of ChatGPT. Wu says marketing researchers like him started adopting deep learning models around 2013. "It's incorporated in, for exam- ple, understanding consumer preferences toward brands, brand positioning or their social media strategies," he explains. "How are brands communicating their positioning or delivering their message, and how this is perceived by the users or consumers?" He describes AI as a multiplier of busi- ness analysts' skills. The emergence of LLMs can also empower them to focus more on analysis, and less on writing software. He says about 40 percent of his MBAN students arrive with some coding experience. But he's exploring how LLMs can accelerate that side of their work. "For example, in this course, we play around with data a lot," Wu explains. "So I teach them, in three days, how to use soft- ware to create visualizations. And on day four, we build a comprehensive data dash- board on Airbnb marketing in Vancouver." That's the traditional, piece-by-piece way of highlighting patterns in data, to try to understand it, he says. But then he takes an afternoon and tells the class: "Let's forget about the traditional software. Now you have the data. It's just a CSV file. Now let's chat with these AI tools and see what insights you can get—whether you can also create a dashboard." Wu reports that some students were able to get code built by ChatGPT and get interactive dashboards running within 20 to 30 minutes. "It's incorporated in, for example, understanding consumer preferences toward brands, brand positioning or their social media strategies. How are brands communicating their positioning or delivering their message, and how this is perceived by the users or consumers?" Chunhua Wu assistant professor and division chair, Master of Business Analytics program at Sauder So when Wu talks about AI being a mul- tiplier, he means it can multiply a user's proficiency or productivity. A tool might triple a low-skilled worker's output from one project per day to three, and a high- skilled worker's production from five to 15. Or it can multiply the quality of their work. Either way, he contends, the effect of AI on human capital is much more differenti- ated at higher skill levels. But, he adds: "If your original understanding of analytics, for example, is zero, then AI wouldn't help you at all—because it's hard." A CREATIVE LEAP Researchers like Wu quickly applied earlier deep learning models to analyze data, but their usefulness in other business realms remained limited—for a time. Eventually, innovators began learning to use these ana- lytical tools as creative tools as well. In 2022, Nike gathered archival footage of tennis great Serena Williams from 1999 and 2017 and processed the data through machine learning to simulate 130,000 games between a 17-year-old Williams and the champion at 35 years old. The com- pany used these simulated matches, and ON THE TABLE Students from the Computer Systems Technology diploma and Business Infor- mation Technology and Management – Artificial Intelligence Option programs are at the BCIT Tech Collider, located in the BCIT Downtown campus. They meet with representatives from Vancouver International Airport (YVR) to discuss a proposal for an AI-integrated mainte- nance monitoring system. 53 B C B U S I N E S S . C A M A R C H 2 0 2 5

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