Yes, artificial intelligence is powerful and increasingly popular, but the rapid development of this technology may have one big, important question on many people’s minds. The question is, what can we do with artificial intelligence?
This is a challenge small business owners can face. In early March, seven of them, along with about 30 other Babson students who are part of The Generator, the university’s interdisciplinary AI lab, gathered at the Microsoft Garage, a meeting place and makerspace inside the tech giant’s offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In Cambridge, representatives from Microsoft Research demonstrated a prototype AI agent designed for small and medium-sized businesses that can handle scheduling and customer inquiries and follow-ups. Each student team was then paired with a small business owner to try out the tool. They spent an hour stress testing the technology against real-world operational needs, making recommendations, and presenting them to the Microsoft Research team.
“This is what applied AI looks like: researchers are building AI, students are stress testing it, and business owners are building on everything that actually matters.” Eric Noyce says, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Director of The Generator.
The Microsoft session comes as The Generator continues to pursue its larger mission: preparing and training small business owners for new technologies that promise to change the way businesses operate.
natural partner
Microsoft proposed a collaboration in its Cambridge office because it needed something its own labs couldn’t easily provide: direct, unfiltered access to small business owners and people who understood how small businesses actually operated.
“Babson was a natural partner,” says Noyce, who served as the Michael London ’92 and Stephen H. Kramer ’92 Entrepreneurship term chairs.
That’s because Babson students don’t just learn about and experience entrepreneurship in college. Many of them grew up with it. More than 40 percent of Babson students grew up in small businesses, Noyes said, giving them first-hand insight into the needs and priorities of these types of entrepreneurs.
Several of the students who attended Microsoft’s sessions also served as co-leads for two pilots of Generator’s flagship initiative, AI Innovators Bootcamp. In this program, Professor Babson and his students will provide small and medium-sized businesses with a day of hands-on AI experience, demonstrating how AI can enable innovation and improve the way organizations operate.
Given their previous experience, Babson students were well prepared for the Microsoft session. “They arrived with real-world experience translating between the language of technology and the language of Main Street,” Noyce said.
continuous collaboration
The Cambridge session began with a panel discussion of small business owners moderated by Noyes, exploring the day-to-day realities of running a lean business. Owners talked about the need for constant communication with customers, the cost of missed inquiries, and the tension between responsiveness and the hundreds of other things that require an owner’s attention.
After demonstrating the AI agent prototype, students and small business owners went on to explore the tool and provide concrete, field-level feedback to Microsoft. This session is designed as the first step in an ongoing collaboration that will provide Babson students with access to innovative AI research and development and an opportunity to provide input into Microsoft’s product development cycle.
“The Generator deepens connections between students and industry, positioning Babson’s entrepreneurial expertise as a true asset to technology companies building the next generation of AI tools,” Noyes said.
Beyond the Microsoft sessions, The Generator and the Babson students who work there are keeping busy. Two more bootcamps are scheduled for April 10th and 17th. Generator’s ultimate goal is to train 1,000 small business owners in AI through bootcamps.
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