AI at Lindner
Empowering learners to use AI in solving real-world problems.
Artificial intelligence is transforming every business discipline, every industry and nearly every profession. At Lindner, our strategy is to ensure that AI is not treated as a standalone topic, but rather as a capability that is integrated throughout teaching, learning, industry engagement and experiential education.
Rather than concentrating AI expertise within a single program or department, Lindner's college-wide strategy prepares faculty, students and business partners to understand, apply and lead with AI responsibly. Our AI strategy is built around four interconnected pillars:
- Faculty and staff developing new AI capabilities.
- Students gaining practical skills across the curriculum.
- Business partners collaborating with the college to solve emerging challenges.
- Projects providing authentic learning experiences that benefit students and industry.
Experiential Learning Examples
AI provides new opportunities to strengthen Lindner and UC's tradition of experiential learning by connecting students, faculty, and organizations around meaningful business challenges that create measurable value while providing authentic learning experiences.
Under the leadership of Kris Jones, assistant professor-educator of operations, business analytics, and information systems, a team of students collaborated with Sizemore and Company to transform more than 20 years of company data into a conversational AI model.
The result was Commodoor, a first-of-its-kind application of association-owned knowledge that supplies association members, leaders and staff with on-demand, intelligent access to an organization’s approved digital content. The project combined student talent, faculty expertise and industry investment to fuel innovation. In a four-month development cycle, students completed weekly sprints, each taking turns leading a different workstream.
“I took the lead on ingesting all the documents that the agent uses to generate its answers, structuring the database and backend, optimizing the metadata and response time, ensuring scalability and concurrency, as well as some work on the front-end and system prompt,” said Nathan Sharpe, BS ’25 “I learned so much throughout the experience that I can apply to future projects, and I am very optimistic on what this project could turn into — the potential is massive.”
Reflection was built into every step of the project as students overcame obstacles and tackled bugs in the program, offering opportunities for deep critical thinking.
Students experienced a real-world challenge while building technical expertise, all while delivering value to the client, who gained a live AI product capable ready for deployment.
The Kautz-Uible Economics Institute's Agentic AI Challenge supplied students with hands-on experience building agentic AI tools that solve real-world economic problems. In less than two months, 31 students across 12 teams transformed initial concepts into fully developed AI agents. A workshop supervised by Institute Fellow Hamed Namavari, MA ’11, ’13, PhD ’19, coached students on agentic AI’s foundations.
Agentic AI Challenge winners Tyler Motter, BBA '26 (left) and Mustapha Nasomah.
Finalists presented their agents to nine academic and industry judges. The winning team earned $4,000 in scholarship prize money, with $1,000 awarded to the other finalists.
“My favorite agile concept is ‘failing fast.’ Competitions like this test that concept to the core. You’re working with multiple people, you have an open-ended problem statement, and you want to be the best,” said Alex Henline, BBA ’18, vice president, principal product owner, Fifth Third Bank, and one of the competition’s judges.
Tyler Motter, BBA ’26, and his teammate, Mustapha Zakari Nasomah, a master’s student in information technology, claimed first place with Tariff Compliance Copilot, an agent that helps businesses navigate tariff regulations more efficiently. Motter and Nasomah met weekly to refine their project and prepared intensively for their final presentation, researching judges’ backgrounds and rehearsing potential feedback with a Lindner Career Services staff member.
The connections built through the experience quickly translated into a professional opportunity: Motter networked with a judge after the competition and was encouraged to apply for an open role.
“I chose UC because of co-op and gaining experience like this,” Motter said. “This was a good example of that, even though it wasn’t a [traditional] co-op.”
Academic Offerings
Lindner's student strategy is centered on the belief that AI literacy should become a foundational business competency. Every graduate should understand not only how AI works, but also when and how to apply it responsibly within their chosen discipline.
Rather than limiting AI education to technical majors, Lindner is embedding AI throughout the business curriculum, so students develop practical skills regardless of their area of study.
The Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence Management empowers professionals to lead the future of AI-driven business. Designed for those who want to harness the power of large language models to solve real organizational challenges, this program blends technical insight with strategic, ethical and managerial expertise.
Students learn to design responsible AI solutions, guide cross-functional teams and translate complex AI capabilities into meaningful business results. Through innovative coursework and real-world applications taught by leading Lindner faculty, graduates are prepared to lead, manage and accelerate AI transformation across industries.
The AI in Business graduate certificate educates students on how to leverage AI platforms for solving business problems. AI in Business can be taken in-person or online, and supplies students with experiential learning opportunities with modern AI tools and access to expert faculty researching AI’s latest business applications.
AI in Business can be completed in nine to 12 months (two to three semesters). No prior experience with AI tools is required, but a basic background in Python programming and information systems is helpful.
Elevate your finance career to new heights as you learn to apply machine learning, quantitative methods and emerging technologies to modern financial decision-making with the Applied AI in Finance graduate certificate. Completed in-person or online, Applied AI in Finance emphasizes practical application of AI within real financial contexts.
This certificate can be completed in nine to 12 months (two to three semesters).
Public & Private Training
The Center for Business Analytics and AI is Lindner's primary platform for engaging the business community on AI. The center helps organizations build AI capabilities while strengthening connections between industry, faculty and students.
Generative AI in Business
This public training course focuses on the application of generative AI in data analytics, and offers deeper exploration of prompt engineering and agentic workflows. Fundamental concepts, governance and societal, ethical and regulatory implications of generative AI are covered, too. No prior experience with AI or coding is required.
Private & Customized Training
All public Center for Business Analytics and AI training courses, including Generative AI in Business, can be offered privately. The courses can be tailored to meet the specific needs of the company or organization interested.
Inquiries can be directed to Center for Business Analytics and AI Associate Director Marilyn Kump.
Events
Lindner helps organizations build AI capabilities while strengthening connections between industry, faculty, and students. Our objective is not simply to teach AI tools, but to help organizations understand how AI can responsibly improve productivity, decision making, and business performance.
Analytics & AI Summit
The Analytics & AI Summit brings together leaders, practitioners and academics to explore how organizations can better align data, talent and technology to drive meaningful impac
AI Symposium in Finance & Accounting
In 2026, the Johnson Investment Institute hosted the first-ever AI Symposium in Finance & Accounting under the theme “AI in Practice: The Future of Investment Management and Accounting.” This symposium united students, practitioners and academics to explore how AI is transforming the investment landscape.
Data Science Symposium
The Data Science Symposium brings together experts in AI, analytics and data for a deep dive into the latest tools, trends and techniques shaping these industries.
Speaking Engagements
Bring the power of AI insight to your next event. Lindner experts deliver dynamic keynote presentations and engaging talks that connect the latest AI advances to real-world business impact.
From unlocking the potential of generative AI to building AI-driven organizations, each session is designed to inspire action and spark conversation. Whether you’re hosting a conference, corporate summit or executive retreat, Lindner can tailor a message that resonates with your audience and elevates your event.
| Date | Talk Title/Subject | Conference/Event | Organization | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2026 | How Lindner is equipping students to succeed with AI | BEARCATS/Innovate: Chicago | UC Alumni Association/Lindner College of Business | |
| October 2025 | "The Future of AI: From the Wild West to the Gold Rush" | Data Science Symposium | Center for Business Analytics and AI | |
| October 2025 | "The Future of AI: The Wild West of Modern Technology" | American Modern Perspectives Innovation Conference | American Modern Insurance | |
| September 2025 | "AI's Got Talent: An Introduction to AI Tools" | Great Lakes Relocation Conference | Greater Cincinnati Relocation Council |
Thought Leadership
Lindner experts lend their AI expertise to internal and external media outlets seeking informed perspective. Below is a sampling of Lindner faculty and staff's AI-related external media appearances.
| Outlet | Appearance Summary | Topic(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Wall Street Journal | AI phone scams are getting more sophisticated | AI voice cloning |
| 700WLW | Will AI really replace your job? | AI in the workforce |
| Bearcats Mean Business podcast | A student's guide to generative AI | AI best practices for students |
| Cincinnati Edition | How will AI change the workforce? | AI in the workforce |
| Spectrum News | How scammers can persuade you with AI | AI voice cloning |
Research Impact
Lindner faculty and staff are leading research efforts and studying practical and real-world applications and implications of AI.
Meet the Director
Jeffrey A. Shaffer
Director of AI Strategy | Jacki Perry Professor of Analytics | Assistant Professor-Educator
Shaffer oversees Lindner's strategic and AI implementation efforts. He is an active speaker at conferences, symposiums, universities and corporate training programs on the topics of AI, data visualization, data analytics, generative AI and Tableau.
At Lindner, Shaffer has been awarded the Ronald J. Dornoff Fellow of Teaching Excellence and the Michael L. Dean Excellence in Classroom Education and Learning Graduate Teaching Award. He has also received the OBAIS Adjunct Faculty of the Year award on two occasions.
Shaffer previously served as the Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Information Technology and Analytics at Unifund and Recovery Decision Science. He is one of 36 people in the world inducted into the Tableau Visionary Hall of Fame, hosts the award-winning podcast Chart Chat, and is the co-author of The Big Book of Dashboards and Dashboards That Deliver.