Hyderabad, Aug 23 (IANS): The Indian School of Business (ISB) and Microsoft India on Friday joined hands to equip Indian business leaders with tools and strategies to make their organizations Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven.

Through the creation of the AI Digital Lab, the two organizations will collaborate in research which will use AI and Machine Learning (ML) to study issues that are relevant for business and public policy.

In addition, they will also jointly introduce a new executive programme, to begin in October which aims to train 1,000 executives in AI and its role to improve business decisions over a period of two years.

"With this coming together of ISB and Microsoft, it is a unique opportunity to increase the innovation with AI in business. Our new partnership with ISB will empower business leaders to increase their tech intensity and do more with AI," said Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India.

According to a recent Microsoft and IDC Asia/Pacific study, lack of a coherent AI-strategy is among the top three challenges that Indian business leaders face while trying to accelerate the growth of their respective businesses.

"Transforming organizations guided by AI and augmented by frameworks integrating analytics with human behaviour and management issues will be an important imperative for business leaders," said Professor Rajendra Srivastava, Dean, Indian School of Business.

"Our collaboration with Microsoft India will enable us to use AI to understand new phenomena that are relevant for business as well as policy and subsequently disseminate the knowledge to business leaders who will need to transform their businesses through artificial intelligence to compete effectively," he added.

ISB's executive programme, titled "Leading Business Transformation in the Age of AI" will enable C-suite executives to come up with a coherent strategy to transform their respective organizations into AI-driven organizations.

The three-day non-technical programme is done under the purview of Microsoft's online AI Business School.

"It will also enable social science researchers to derive new insights from data and explore phenomena that were, hitherto, unexplored," said Professor Anand Nandkumar, Associate Dean, Indian School of Business (ISB).