Wharton establishes new artificial intelligence initiative in partnership with OpenAI

This week, The Wharton School announced a partnership with OpenAI to establish a new Wharton AI & Analytics Initiative, making Wharton the first business school to collaborate with the company that created ChatGPT. 

The endeavor — which was announced on May 29 — aims to improve research and teaching capabilities and focuses on the application of AI and analytics in industry, research, academics, and society, according to the press release. Scholars across Wharton’s 10 academic departments will participate in the initiative, which will consider AI’s ethical impact across a variety of sectors including investment banking, entrepreneurship, and healthcare. 

“Exponential advances in AI are already changing how we live, learn, and work,” Interim Penn President Larry Jameson said in the press release. “Like education, business must either lead this technological revolution or be led, and who better to help blaze the trail than the number one business school in the world?”

Wharton Dean Erika James shared a similar sentiment.

“Artificial intelligence is poised to fundamentally transform every sector of business and society, and the world needs reliable, evidence-based insights about its practical and responsible use today,” she said.

As part of the initiative, Wharton will establish two new funds to improve research and teaching. An AI research fund will provide faculty members the resources to pursue projects investigating the intersections of AI advancement and business, industry, and global economies.

The Education Innovation Fund will support curriculum-specific innovation with financial resources, according to the press release, allowing faculty to “augment, adapt, and reimagine how they incorporate AI into classroom instruction and course materials.”

In addition to these funds, Wharton will work with OpenAI to help develop a new open-source platform to further explore the rapid, iterative development of generative AI models targeting how society works and learns. This tool is intended to shape the overall direction of GenAI while minimizing risks.

The initiative will provide all full-time and executive MBA students with ChatGPT Enterprise licenses to “further enable their exploration of generative AI.”

The introduction of the Wharton AI & Analytics Initiative follows the implementation of Strategies for Accountable AI, an executive education program aiming to teach practical frameworks addressing risk and responsibility with modern AI use. This program was announced last April. 

“We are once again answering society’s call to address the needs of tomorrow and we’re excited to provide our students and the business world with the tools and applicable knowledge they need to excel as we collectively confront the most transformative technology of our time,” Wharton Deputy Dean Nancy Rothbard said in the press release.