USC Marshall School of Business appointed Kimon Drakopoulos as vice dean of AI initiatives, the school announced Tuesday. Drakopoulos will be responsible for advancing the school’s strategic direction in artificial intelligence.
“AI will stay as a tool, but AI will not be a defining factor of how we think and how we add value as a society,” Drakopoulos said in an interview with Annenberg Media. “It will be an enabler.”
Drakopoulos is the Ronald N. Tutor Chair in Visionary Business and an associate professor of data sciences and operations at Marshall. In 2023, he co-founded the AI for business program, an undergraduate major jointly offered by Marshall and USC Viterbi School of Engineering.
“Kimon brings experience at the highest levels of government, industry, and academia, along with a demonstrated ability to translate strategy into action at scale,” said Andy Call, interim dean of USC Marshall School of Business. “That combination will be instrumental in defining how USC Marshall leads in AI and shapes what comes next.”
Drakopoulos has experience in AI strategy in government, formerly serving as chief data scientist of Greece’s COVID-19 task force. In the private sector, he served as executive advisor for AI and Innovation at PwC Greece.
“Regardless of which angle you approach it from, it is something that everyone is thinking about and is debating about,” he said. “The market seems to require AI related skills. That’s partially why we’re building these programs and these initiatives.”
More than 350 universities offer degree programs in AI, with USC adding to the smaller pool of institutions that combine business and AI into one program. Drakopoulos said his initiative pushes Marshall students to utilize the bridge between business and the changing AI ecosystem.
The inaugural class of the BUAI program graduates this year with “a very solid technical background,” he said. As vice dean of AI initiatives, Drakopoulos said he hopes to teach Marshall students how best to use AI as a tool.
“This is not about integrating AI. I’m actually very much against the ‘AI everywhere’ message because it is the wrong message,” Drakopoulos said. “I am all about introspection and thinking about okay, ‘why do we offer it to students?’”
Drakopoulos said he wants students to have the “drive to try to make your decisions data-driven,” and to use AI as one tool in a larger picture of business leadership.
However, he said “nothing is set in stone” yet in regards to Marshall’s overall AI strategy.
“We are preparing business leaders across the board, and that’s where we need to focus,” Drakopoulos said. “That’s our strength. So whatever we decide to pursue around AI should respect that uniqueness of Marshall.”
Edited by Scott Hills and Katherine Contreras Hernandez