Dartmouth AI Conference Explores the Future of Artificial Intelligence

The Dartmouth AI Conference, led by the Tuck School of Business’s Glassmeyer/McNamee Center for Digital Strategies, was created to help leaders make sense of this moment. Now in its third year, the Silicon Valley–based event convened several hundred alumni, students, and industry experts for discussions on the opportunities and complexities of AI in business and society.

“We built this conference to create a forum where people can engage deeply—not just with what’s possible, but with what’s responsible,” said Patrick Wheeler, executive director of the Center for Digital Strategies. “The Dartmouth and Tuck networks in AI run incredibly deep inside the best companies in the world, and it’s powerful to bring those perspectives together in one room.”

This year’s program featured alumni and industry leaders shaping AI strategy across sectors. J Lewis T’11, a startup founder and product lead at LinkedIn, and Thiago Teodoro T’11, a senior director at CrowdStrike, shared perspectives on product adoption and security. Brent Dance T’13, a director at Google, moderated a conversation on building AI-first organizations. Other speakers included Mike Breen D’02 of Anthropic, Josh Marcuse D’04, director of strategic initiatives and responsible AI lead at Google Public Sector, Nasim Afsar, former chief health officer at Oracle, and Hany Farid, professor at UC Berkeley and chief science officer at GetReal Security.

Keynote speaker Chris O’Neill T’01, CEO of GrowthLoop, brought lessons from a career spanning Google, Evernote, and early-stage growth companies. In a conversation with Alva Taylor, senior associate dean for Tuck Executive Education and faculty director of the Center for Digital Strategies, O’Neill reflected on how the current moment compares to past technological shifts. “I graduated in 2001, so I saw the before and after of the dot-com wave,” said O’Neill. “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. The pace of change with AI is very steep—and it has woven itself into almost every part of our personal and professional lives.”

Panels throughout the day explored real-world implications and tensions. A cybersecurity session featured Matt Knight D’11 and Th’12, vice president at OpenAI, and Hany Farid, who examined how image and video manipulation is reshaping public trust in information. Another conversation centered on health care innovation. Julie Skaff T’08, former COO of Viz.ai, discussed how AI can help address staffing shortages and improve diagnostics and care delivery. “We’re facing an aging population and a shortage of providers,” said Skaff. “AI is going to be a critical part of bridging that gap.” Environmental considerations also surfaced as a major theme. “The energy use and carbon footprint of large-scale AI models came up this year in ways it simply didn’t before,” Wheeler noted. “The conversation has shifted from ‘What can this do?’ to ‘What should we do with it—and how do we manage the costs and risks?’”

At Tuck, AI is being integrated into teaching, learning, and research in purposeful and hands-on ways. Faculty are incorporating AI into coursework through exercises that ask students to analyze, refine, or challenge AI-generated outputs, and some courses use custom chatbots trained on course materials to help students test decisions and explore alternatives. Tuck also offers a growing set of courses and executive programs focused on AI, data-driven decision-making, and ethics. And as the first higher education institution to secure a site-wide agreement with OpenAI, Tuck provides every student, faculty member, and professional staff colleague access to advanced AI tools for experimentation and responsible use.

Hosted in partnership with Dartmouth’s Rockefeller Center for Public Policy, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Geisel School of Medicine, the conference reflects a campus-wide effort to bring together leading voices in business, technology, and policy to better understand and navigate this transformative moment in AI. Next year’s event will again take place in Silicon Valley on Friday, October 16, 2026. It will mark the 70th anniversary of the 1956 Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence, where the term “artificial intelligence” was first coined, honoring Dartmouth’s role as the birthplace of AI while advancing understanding of its impact on business and society.