AI on the Global Stage

Embodying the collaborative and global nature of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, The Center for Applied AI recently participated in a Data, Policy, and Innovation Center (DPIC) Forum on “Personalizing Policy: Putting AI to Work”, held in Bhubaneswar, India. The event brought together senior government leaders, academic researchers, industry partners, and members of Odisha’s innovation-centered ecosystem to explore how artificial intelligence can strengthen policy making and improve public service delivery.

Organized in partnership with the Government of Odisha, the forum explored opportunities to modernize state administrative practices. Distinguished guests/attendees included Mr. Manoj Ahuja, former Chief Secretary of the Government of Odisha, Ms. Anu Garg, current Chief Secretary and former Development Commissioner, and Mr. Vishal Kumar Dev, Principal Secretary of the Electronics and IT Department, whose continued leadership and support advance data-driven governance in the state, and facilitate productive conversations about the future of AI.

Applying AI to Advance Equity in Public Policy

The keynote address was delivered by Professor Sanjog Misra, Charles H. Kellstadt Distinguished Service Professor of Marketing and Applied AI, and Faculty Director of the Center of Applied AI at Chicago Booth. His research focuses on translating data-driven insights into real-world impact across both public and private sectors—a mission that reflects CAAI’s own commitment to applying AI at scale to benefit business and society. 
Misra brought that mindset with him to the conference, reflecting on the opportunity to apply AI research to policy challenges. He emphasized that AI’s greatest value often lies not in generative capabilities alone, but in the ability to personalize decisions at scale. He argued that many policy outcomes hinge on communication; how governments design, frame, and deliver messages to citizens, and that AI can meaningfully improve the process.

From Behavioral Science to Scalable Impact

Drawing on applied research conducted in partnership with U.S. state governments, Professor Misra shared a case study from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The study demonstrated how AI-driven personalization of reminder messages (i.e. tailoring language, framing, and urgency tailored to individual preferences) significantly improved program retention among eligible recipients.

The results emphasized the power of AI:

• Personalized messaging by AI outperformed any single “best” message designed for the average recipient.
• In California, the intervention redirected approximately $14 million annually to households already eligible for benefits.
• At a national level, similar approaches had the potential to enable the distribution of an additional $4.5 billion in allocated benefits.

Critically, the findings highlight that when policies are designed for everyone in the same “average” way, they often don’t meet the needs of people who are marginalized or disadvantaged; the people who face the most barriers. By personalizing policy (tailoring it to individuals’ or groups’ specific circumstances) the benefits reach these marginalized populations more effectively, helping them in ways that one-size-fits-all policies cannot.

In-short: personalized policy can significantly help the people who usually get left behind or overlooked.

Beyond Messaging: AI in Pricing, Forgiveness, and Proactive Governance

Professor Misra extended these insights to other policy domains, including differential pricing, loan and fine forgiveness, and social program eligibility. In each case, AI-enabled personalization allows policymakers to distinguish between willingness and ability which in-turn supports more efficient, equitable and humane outcomes.

Looking ahead, Misra highlighted the growing role of agentic AI systems (models that combine language understanding with planning, memory and action). 

“We're not talking about some idea that’ll show up in six years” he shared, “We're talking about right now. The agentic economy is going to be here in the next year. [There are] billions of these agents floating around and somebody has to manage them. Of course, there's going to be other agents managing them. But then what's the role of the human in all of this?”

These systems are already being piloted in complex workflows and hold promise for enabling governments to shift from reactive enforcement to predictive, preventative, and citizen-centered policy delivery.

Building Capacity for Applied AI

The forum also emphasized the foundational investments required for personalized policy to work well and the foundational investments that are necessary. In order to have reliable, well-organized systems to collect and store data, there needs to be strong data infrastructure in-place. There also has to be responsible data sharing across institutions that allows for protected privacy when government departments are accessing relevant data. Finally, there needs to be domain-specific and sovereign AI models (particularly for underrepresented languages) trained on local, specialized, and/or context-specific data, rather than relying on generic global models. 

As an academic center, the Center for Applied AI at Chicago Booth plays a critical role in advancing this work, not only through research, but through education. 

Professor Misra emphasized the importance of integrating AI into university curricula, “We have to change the way we learn, change the way we teach… Once you get to college level or even high school level education, I think it's actually a detriment to not have AI as part of the curriculum itself.” 

Preparing students to work alongside intelligent systems while raising expectations for analytical rigor is a cornerstone of developing both technical proficiency and critical thinking in an AI-augmented landscape.

From Equality to Equity

To close, Professor Misra called for a shift in how policymakers think about fairness in the age of AI. Rather than equating fairness with uniformity, he argued for equity-focused policy design. Using AI to tailor interventions in ways that expand opportunity and improve outcomes.

The DPIC Forum reinforced a central theme for the Center for Applied AI’s mission: when grounded in rigorous research and implemented thoughtfully, applied AI can deliver measurable impact. Applied AI has the potential to help institutions design smarter policies, allocate resources more effectively, and serve communities more equitably.