Research co-authored by associate professor Dan McCarthy finds that online sports betting legalization has led to a rise in irresponsible gambling, especially among lower-income individuals. The study highlights financial risks and calls for safeguards to mitigate potential societal harm.

Marketing PhD student Ziting Liao, with faculty Liye Ma and Wendy Moe, developed a model predicting purchase intent from AI assistant interactions. By analyzing language patterns, the tool helps advertisers better target consumers and optimize strategies based on intent.

Joseph Reiff, assistant professor of marketing, co-invented The Retirement Visualizer™, an AI tool using GPT and DALL·E to help individuals vividly imagine retirement goals. By making the future feel tangible, it aims to boost motivation and increase retirement savings.

Smith’s Xiaojia Guo co-authored a study on forecasting demand for new products using Bayesian model averaging. The research offers a robust, flexible model for predicting life cycles of fast-evolving items like fashion, news topics and digital content.

New online marketplaces often rely on network effects to grow, but inviting prominent sellers can shape their long-term reputation. Research from Wedad Elmaghraby and Ashish Kabra shows that high-quality sellers attract premium buyers, while lower-quality sellers foster price-sensitive markets.

When the Covid pandemic made the already growing trend of remote work ubiquitous five years ago, it also opened possibilities for where people could decide to live.

Professors Siva Viswanathan, Balaji Padmanabhan, and PhD student Yizhi Liu at UMD’s Smith School developed a patent-pending deepfake method to detect and mitigate bias in decision-making. Their study shows how AI-generated images can improve fairness in hiring, healthcare, and criminal justice.

App crashes shorten user sessions and reduce content consumption, says Smith’s Michel Wedel. While a single crash boosts engagement, frequent failures can drive users away. Developers should release updates cautiously, target resilient users, and take responsibility to maintain trust.

A study by Smith professor Michael Trusov and Sanghwa Kim finds South Korean consumers spend more on hedonic goods when air pollution rises, seeking mood-lifting purchases. Published in the Journal of Marketing, the research suggests implications for marketers and policymakers in responsible consumer engagement.

Smith professor Musa Subasi’s research, published in Management Science, examines whether credit rating agencies use options market data to improve rating accuracy. His study finds that higher options trading volume correlates with more accurate ratings, offering insights for regulatory discussions on credit ratings.