The Naveen Jindal School of Management at The University of Texas at Dallas will present its inaugural Artificial Intelligence (AI) Day Oct. 28, bringing together industry leaders, researchers and students for a daylong look at how AI is reshaping business, technology, education and society.
“The rise of AI is one of the most significant disruptors in business history, and a business school cannot afford to be passive,” said Dr. Hasan Pirkul, Caruth Chair and Jindal School dean. “We are hosting this conference to provide the frameworks necessary to turn AI’s risk into a competitive advantage. Our commitment is to ensure DFW’s next generation of leaders are trained to leverage these skills to deliver the best results for their organizations.”
Dr. Gaurav Shekhar, MS’16 MS’23 PhD’24, associate dean for Administration, Student Success, and Alumni Relations at the Jindal School and AI Day organizer, called this the “golden age of AI” — not because AI is new, since it goes back to neural networks of the 1940s, but because it has finally reached everyday users through tools like Meta AI, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google Gemini.
“Until tools like these became available, AI was largely abstract and out-of-reach for most people,” Shekhar said. “Now it’s accessible, normalized and changing industries as well as society at every level.”
Every revolution in technology — the personal computer, the internet, broadband and now AI — has given industry a reason to pivot, Shekhar said.
“Technology gave the same leverage to healthcare not too long ago,” he said. “Healthcare drug development, which is a very expensive business, now uses data analytics and AI to reduce development costs. And those costs have fallen by 90%. A drug that used to cost about $2-2.5 billion to develop can now be developed for less than $200 million. Each new technology gives traditional businesses a reason to pivot and improve their bottom line. AI is becoming a multiplier of a business’s data analytics and strategic needs.”
AI Day will help connect those sweeping changes to the classroom and the boardroom, with sessions led by executives, faculty and students.
The keynote speaker will be Nikunj Nirmal, MS’13, MBA’13, head of engineering at Amazon. The closing keynote address will be delivered by Karthik Ravindran, general manager of the Worldwide Go-to-Market for Data Platforms at Microsoft. These presentations will offer attendees insights from senior leaders at two of the world’s biggest tech companies.
A panel discussion — “The Business of AI – How Leaders are positioning their AI Strategy” — will feature Sarah Gonzalez, CIO, Logan Finance Corporation, Erik Jost, chief AI strategist at Blackbox; and Alicia Dietsch, head of commercialization at AT&T.
Sunela Thomas, director of the Jindal School’s MS in Business Analytics Flex program, framed AI Day not as an announcement of something new, but as a celebration of UT Dallas’s long-standing AI research culture and the region’s role as one of the fastest-growing tech hubs in the world.
“AI will help businesses distinguish human strengths from machine capabilities,” she said.
Students will participate in competitions sponsored by Alteryx, RSM, Celonis, DigitalXForce, MongoDB and AWS, and will hear from more than 50 guest speakers presenting real-world case discussions. For students, the sessions are designed to bridge classroom learning with industry needs.
Other key speakers include Jerad Ballard from Caterpillar, who will focus on delivering AI Services to Employees. His talk will be followed by Ross Agnus Williams from Bell Nunnally, who will shed light on how law firms are leveraging AI.
Industry professionals will have a forum to exchange perspectives, share best practices and collaborate across sectors while discussing AI’s impact on products, services and the workforce, and highlighting opportunities for cross-industry collaboration.
According to Shekhar, the North Texas community — which he noted would rank as the world’s 23rd-largest economy if it were a country — is becoming a proving ground for how AI can shape business and civic life. Questions related to the responsible use of AI will be answered in a panel discussion featuring Pranav Kansara, executive director, Wells Fargo; and Shea Rodgers, CIO, Town of Little Elm, Tex. The panel will be moderated by Lee Bratcher, PhD’24, president of the Texas Blockchain Council.
“Our goal is for attendees to leave with at least one moment where they say, ‘Oh, I never thought about it that way,’” Shekhar said. “That’s when we will know that we’ve done our job.”
Kannan Srikanth, Director of the Jindal School’s Center for Information Technology and Management, said the writing was on the wall for the event to occur.
“AI Day had to happen at UT Dallas at this point in time,” he said. “It had to be led by a business school that is extremely technical, extremely STEM-focused and a champion of AI.”
Date: Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025
Time: 9:00 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Location: Naveen Jindal School of Management & Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center, UT Dallas
Cost: Free and open to the public thanks to event sponsors Alteryx, Amazon, Lendarch, Microsoft, MongoDB, PWC, RSM and Salesforce.
For more information and registration (including interested news-media members), please visit jindal.utdallas.edu/ai-day.
