The Voice of Retail Brain Rush! Gen AI, AI Hallucinations and Retailers with Peter Cohan, an Associate Professor of Management Practice at Babson College
Brain Rush! Gen AI, AI Hallucinations and Retailers with Peter Cohan, an Associate Professor of Management Practice at Babson College
Meet Peter Cohan, an Associate Professor of Management Practice at Babson College, the founding principal of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm, and has completed over 150 growth-strategy consulting projects for global technology companies and invested in seven startups, three of which were sold for about $2 billion and one of which went public in 2021 at an $18 billion valuation. Impressive numbers.
Peter tells us about his 17th book, another impressive number, Brain Rush, and we get deep into GenAI, whether the current concentration of AI development amongst the most prominent tech players will help or hurt the development of valuable and safe AI, AI hallucinations and how retailers should think about their impact on customer service, AI flyers for the masses and much more!
About Peter
Peter Cohan is an Associate Professor of Management Practice at Babson College. He teaches strategy, leadership, and entrepreneurship to students in the college’s undergraduate, Master of Science in Entrepreneurial Leadership (MSEL), MBA, and Executive Education programs. He is coordinator of Babson’s required undergraduate strategy course and the creator and teacher of advanced strategy courses for undergraduate and MSEL students. Cohan is the founding principal of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. He has completed over 150 growth-strategy consulting projects for global technology companies and invested in seven startups, three of which were sold for about $2 billion and one of which went public in 2021 at an $18 billion valuation. He has written 17 books, includingBrain Rush: How to Invest and Compete in the Real World of Generative AI andNet Profit: How to Invest and Compete in the Wild World of Internet Business. He is a senior contributor to Forbes and an Inc. contributor. He is a frequent media commentator who has appeared on ABC’s Good Morning America, Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC, Fox Business News, American Public Media’s MarketPlace, WBUR, WGBH, New England Cable News, and the Boston ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates. He has been quoted in the Associated Press, the Christian Science Monitor, the London Evening Standard, the Times of London, the New York Times, Nikkei, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Portugal’s Expresso, the Economist, Time, BusinessWeek, and Fortune. He also appeared in the 2016 documentary film We the People: The Market Basket Effect. Prior to starting his firm, he worked as a case team leader for Monitor Company, Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter’s consulting firm. He has taught at MIT, Stanford, Columbia, Tel Aviv University, New York University, and Bentley University.
About Brain Rush
My most recent book (the 17th I have authored) Brain Rush: How to Invest and Compete in the Real World of Generative AI, discusses both the benefits and challenges of implementing AI in the retail and eCommerce markets and some of the specific topics I could discuss on your podcast include:
- How can retailers distinguish the few high payoff generative AI applications from the many losing ones?
- Which generative AI applications are creating the most value for retailers?
- What are the most significant risks retailers could face if they introduce generative AI to customers and partners?
- How should retailers capture the benefits and minimize the risks of these high payoff generative AI applications?
Peer pressure forces CEOs to tell Wall Street how generative AI will transform their business but at the same time, CEOs fear generative AI hallucinations could threaten their company’s reputation. This fear is based in reality. For instance, Google’s AI advised people to add glue to pizza,Forbes careers contributor Jack Kelly noted. And Air Canada's AI chatbot made up a refund policy for a customer — and a Canadian tribunal forced the airline to issue a real refund based on its AI-invented policy, Wired reported.
This inconsistent battle has significant implications for business. Of 200 to 300 generative AI experiments the typical large company is undertaking, a mere 10 to 15 have been rolled out internally, and perhaps one or two have been released to customers.
Babson College Associate Professor of Management Practice
Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career.
Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels, most recently on the main stage in Toronto at Retail Council of Canada’s Retail Marketing conference with leaders from Walmart & Google. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.
Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.
Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fifth year in a row, the National Retail Federation has designated Michael as on their Top Retail Voices for 2025, Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail, RTIH has named him a top 100 global though leader in retail technology and Coresight Research has named Michael a Retail AI Influencer. If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael’s cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.
Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.