The TIM Speaker Series Presents: Beyond the AI Hype – How TIM Students Can Spot What’s Next
Wednesday, September 23, 2026 from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
- Virtual event
- Teams meeting link
Beyond the AI Hype: How TIM Students Can Use AI and Innovation Theory to Spot Emerging Technology-based Opportunities
Featuring Guest Speaker: Stoyan Tanev, Associate Professor, Entrepreneurship
How can organizations distinguish a passing technology trend from an early-stage innovation with genuine disruptive potential before market outcomes are clear? This seminar examines how disruptive innovation theory can be used as an ex ante analytical framework to identify and interpret early signals of market change.
Drawing on competitive intelligence research and practice, the presentation shows how Large Language Models (LLMs such as ChatGPT, Perplexity.ai, Claude, etc.) can help analysts rapidly gather, organize, compare, and synthesize evidence about emerging companies, technologies, business models, and markets. Rather than treating AI as an oracle or a substitute for judgment, the session presents LLMs as disciplined research assistants whose outputs must be grounded in credible sources, theory-guided questions, and human validation.
Participants will be introduced to a practical workflow that connects disruptive innovation theory, competitive intelligence, and AI-enabled analysis to support more informed strategic choices. The central message is that the goal is not to predict disruption with certainty, but to recognize relevant signals earlier, assess uncertainty more rigorously, and build strategic options before change becomes obvious.