AI Is Reshaping Business, and Leavey Professor Ram Bala is Writing the Guidebook
As the generative AI wave reshapes industries, it’s easy to get swept up in the latest case studies showing time saved or tasks automated. But for Ram Bala, an experienced data scientist, professor of business analytics and co-author of the new book The AI-Centered Enterprise, this moment demands a deeper reflection, not just about what AI can do, but how it should transform the way businesses fundamentally operate.
Bala’s background in machine learning long predates popular generative AI chatbots, like ChatGPT. He’s applied data science to everything from supply chains to marketplace pricing, working with both start-ups and large corporations. Through this work, one insight became increasingly clear: implementing data-driven technologies in business workflows is never as simple as feeding a model some numbers and watching it take action.
“Business decisions are rarely just about the data,” Bala explains. “They also depend on contracts, compliance issues, company culture, and the lived experiences of employees.” A model might produce a highly optimized recommendation, but if HR has concerns about people implications, or if a legacy legal agreement complicates execution, those nuances can derail implementation. AI systems, as they’ve existed until now, haven’t been equipped to understand that broader context.
This is precisely where “The AI-Centered Enterprise” begins. Co-authored by a cross-disciplinary team of academics – spanning supply chain, strategy and marketing – who met while obtaining their PhDs from UCLA, the book introduces the concept of Context-Aware AI: systems that understand not only what is said, but also the surrounding intent and conditions. Tools like ChatGPT represent the beginning of this shift, Bala says, not the endpoint.
“We started writing the book in early 2023, about five months after ChatGPT launched,” he recalls. “By May of that year, it was clear that this wasn’t just a technical tool, it was a management revolution in the making.” Fast forward to today, Bala sees a new wave of CEOs actively asking how to implement AI, even those with no technical backgrounds. “AI has moved from the IT department to the boardroom.”
The book offers a simple framework - Calibrate, Clarify, Channelize - to help leaders navigate this shift. The process begins by calibrating expectations and understanding the organizational pain points that AI might address. Next, it involves clarifying how workflows operate today, including informal practices like recurring meetings or ad hoc decision-making. Finally, leaders must channel AI tools toward those needs, using techniques like prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), or building agentic systems that adapt to specific team dynamics.
Bala offers a case in point: a mid-sized manufacturing company in the Midwest. Despite using some digital tools in its sales and operations planning, the company still struggles with excessive meetings and misaligned forecasts. Instead of throwing an AI tool at the problem, Bala walks leadership through the 3Cs. “Let’s clarify: Why are we meeting so much? What’s actually being discussed, and where are the data gaps?” From there, they begin identifying which parts of the planning cycle can be streamlined, and what kind of AI solution fits best.
As AI becomes more deeply embedded in business operations, Bala urges leaders not to wait on the sidelines. “The AI-Centered Enterprise” is a call to rethink how organizations are structured, how decisions are made, and how human expertise and machine intelligence can complement each other in entirely new ways.
“This isn’t about replacing people with machines,” Bala emphasizes. “It’s about designing organizations where people and AI work together seamlessly, where the technology adapts to us, not the other way around.”
For executives, strategists, and team leaders alike, this book offers a roadmap, not just for surviving the AI transition, but for leading it. The companies that thrive in the coming years will be the ones that don’t just adopt AI, but center it.