Artificial intelligence is all the rage. But underneath those headline-grabbing tech tools is something far less glamorous — and far more essential: business analytics, the decision-making workflow that turns AI from a flashy demo into a real business advantage.
The Third Annual Academic Summit for Business Analytics 2026 (ASBA 2026), presented by the Naveen Jindal School of Management at The University of Texas at Dallas, will be held Jan. 28–30 on the UT Dallas campus. Attendees and presenters will come from both academia and industry. Sessions will explore how higher education — working alongside industry thought leaders — is preparing the next generation of tech and analytics talent with the skills, frameworks and best practices organizations need to turn AI into results.
Dr. Gaurav Shekhar, associate dean for administration, student success and alumni relations and an associate professor of instruction in the Information Systems Area, explained that higher education often struggles to keep pace with how quickly analytics and AI are evolving because curriculum changes typically move through multiple layers of review across a school, the university, and system-level review.
“Those processes exist for an important reason — protecting academic quality — but they can also unintentionally slow execution and innovation, creating a lag between what programs develop and what students ultimately receive,” he said.
In practice, he said, that delay can mean that by the time updates reach students, the field has already shifted again, making staying current a constant challenge for institutions trying to prepare graduates for real-world demands.
Sunela Thomas, program director of the MS Business Analytics & AI Flex program, said that ASBA 2026 is more than a traditional conference where people show up and learn.
“It’s a checkpoint — a readout on where analytics and AI programs stand right now in higher education,” she said. “We do this every year to stay ahead of the challenges.”
Panna Sharma, CEO of Lantern Pharma, will deliver the industry keynote address on Thursday, Jan. 29. He will discuss how his company has used AI to reduce drug development costs and shorten the time it takes to bring essential therapies to market.
A group discussion — The Relevance of Analytics — will feature two experts from the Jindal School: Shekhar and Thomas. They will direct a workshop-style discussion with conference attendees that focuses on what counts as analytics work now that AI is everywhere — and what universities should teach as the field continues to shift.
A panel discussion — Anxieties of Students – AI vs. Skills — will feature Dr. Salena Brody, associate director for the Center for Teaching and Learning at UT Dallas; Lyndsay Noble, director of analytics programs at Rockhurst University; Dr. Adam Molnar, academic director, MSBA Program at the University of Arizona; and Javier Aldape, director of the MS Analytics program at Mays Business School at Texas A&M University.
Another group discussion on Thursday will tackle recruiting challenges faced by program directors in this fast-paced academic field, offering solutions on how to draw students who would benefit most from a career in business analytics. It will be led by Thomas; Dr. Prajakti Akarte, program director of the Jindal School’s BS in Business Analytics & AI program; and Dr. Antonio Paes, director of the Jindal School’s MS Business Analytics & AI (Cohort and Online) programs. All three are conference co-chairs.
On Friday, Mandar Samant, EMBA’21, an associate professor of practice in the Jindal School’s Information Systems Area, will moderate an industry panel on the usage of Analytics across domains.
Shekhar, also a conference co-chair, said the event’s goal is to help students and program leaders better navigate a field that keeps shifting, especially as AI changes how quickly skills can become outdated.
“We are in the business of giving confidence,” he said, adding that anxiety often comes from uncertainty — and that universities can reduce it by normalizing ethical AI use and teaching students how to apply these tools correctly in realistic, high-stakes scenarios.
“Anxiety is a product of the unknown,” added Dr. Vatsal Maru, an associate professor in the Jindal School’s Information Systems Area and a conference co-chair, who noted that when academia doesn’t have every answer in-house, industry partners can help fill in the gaps — and that knowledge should be made accessible to students before they enter the workplace.
