Market Maverick

Armed with an AI Edge

by Hendrix Magley

IN AN ERA where understanding consumer behavior is more critical than ever, the Romain College of Business is focusing on two learning competencies to ensure students' education includes access to cutting-edge AI tools giving them a competitive edge in the marketplace as well as market-leading skills in neuromarketing and textual analytics.

Learning these skills allows students to meet the College's value proposition created by Dr. Sudesh Mujumdar, Dean of the Romain College of Business: Leveraging technology in unique ways to build market-leading competencies in our students in a personalized, co-created learning environment.

While students have had access to software through iMotions, an IT company specializing in human research software, at USI's Biometrix Lab since 2017, they can now access the company's EduLabs. The webbased platform enables students to use iMotion's eye-tracking and facial expression analysis software remotely using any laptop equipped with a webcam.

"Romain College of Business graduates now have first-hand experience with cutting-edge technology that most other business school graduates do not have," said Dr. Chad Milewicz, USI Professor of Marketing and Chair of the Economics and Marketing Department. "This experience will improve how they evaluate opportunities to apply new technologies in business and expand their thinking of how people respond to business decisions."

The EduLabs platform is integrated into the Introduction to Marketing course, taken by all Romain College of Business students, typically in their second semester of freshman year. Graduate students will also use the technology in the Marketing Strategies course within the MBA program. Milewicz aims to reach 1,000 students a year with neuromarketing curriculum.

"The knowledge and skills I acquired have been important in my career," said Courtney Bourne '23, marketing. "As a Marketing Insights Analyst for First Financial Bank, I apply these lessons daily to analyze consumer behavior, identify patterns and uncover trends."

In addition to neuromarketing, each undergraduate business student is introduced to the market-leading skill of textual analytics. Textual analytics is the analysis of any text-based or unstructured data for the purpose of understanding deeper information in those data.

"For the second year in a row, several hundred Romain sophomores are executing work in text analytics across business communication courses. Industry appetite for unstructured data literacy and AI analysis is expanding significantly, and we are positioning students to meet these needs," said Dr. Curt Gilstrap, Professor of Business Communication. "Romain students prepare by executing on research projects inclusive of original datasets, Generative AI tools and machine learning-based cloud software."

The College created its own AI-data-scraping facility called TAPLab (Textual Analytics and Publications Laboratory), providing students with an in-house advantage. In the Lab, students use Natural Language Processing to comprehend and comb through large amounts of data. A recent assignment had students scraping the internet for job listings in major regional cities—including Indianapolis and St. Louis—to discover the most common baseline skills required and prepare them for what employers are looking for in job searches.

"[Professors] at USI always try to keep up to date with the current technologies," said Lilly Neeson '25, computer science, former project manager in the TAPLab. "This is an essential part of being in the tech industry."

Undergraduate business students are learning this skill as early as their sophomore year in business communication classes. The hands-on experience puts students ahead of the curve when they enter their career field.