Séminaire « Brain & Bots – Rethinking automation for people » : nos étudiants imaginent l’automatisation du futur

The team that teaches the Advanced Master in Marketing & Data Analytics organises an annual seminar exploring a strategic challenge facing businesses. The topic for 2025 was automation in the age of generative AI or “Brain & Bots – Rethinking Automation for People”. The seminar reflects NEOMA's determination to ground its teaching in real-world scenarios and develop its students' analytical skills. 

What did the seminar aim to do?

“The aim was to examine the role of humans as guarantors of responsible, meaningful and value-creating transformation, particularly in marketing,” explains Othman Boujena, Director of the Master's programme. The starting point: the automation of marketing campaigns and customer interactions by ‘AI agents’. Is this automation a way to reduce costs and headcount (‘cost-killing’), or a lever to create value, improve the customer experience and support human teams?

To advance our students’ thinking, we invited several companies – Orange, Suez, NukkAI, Covéa, and Blue Frog Robotics (an automation solutions provider) – to showcase their automation strategies. These ranged from chatbots to more sophisticated agents, including “emotional” robots built with a “tech for good” mindset. The guest speakers shared their doubts, outlined the constraints they face and discussed different ways forward. 

What challenges did the students face? 

They were organised in groups of five or six, and tasked with generating two “deliverables”. First, they were asked to produce a critical journal in which they deconstructed their preconceived notions about automation (for example, did they view it solely through the lens of productivity or reduce it to mere chatbots?). Students had to identify biases or perspectives that were overly focused on costs or image, and also imagine what tomorrow’s automation could look like if it were designed by humans and for humans.

The next step was to create a mind map to illustrate everything they had learned from the presentations given by the guest companies (stories, tech maturity, culture, priorities); the dilemmas involved in rolling out automation (productivity vs customer value, innovation vs jobs, standardisation vs adaptation, etc.); and the creative pathways toward a responsible, sustainable and inclusive form of automation.

What were the learning objectives? 

NEOMA professors want to develop critical thinking skills:  ‘We want to challenge assumptions and train minds capable of thinking about technology and its marketing/business implications with clarity, discernment and responsibility,’ explains Othman Boujena. We want to explore the major changes underway and redesign the AI and data transformation of tomorrow. "

The idea is to approach automation with and around people.  With this exercise, students can move beyond a logic of cost and fashion or market standards (‘we automate because everyone else does’) towards a logic of shared and sustainable value. 

How do the students benefit? 

The seminar helps them develop critical skills. They learn to assess an automation initiative critically: Why do it? Who is it for? What are the implications for customer value, the business model, jobs and the firm’s brand image?

And that equips them with the analytical tools for their future careers as data analysts or data scientists, AI project managers, data/AI consultants, CRM specialists, business analysts or prompt engineers.