Doctoral researcher (PhD Position) in Conversational AI for Customer and Employee Interactions

Description

The Technology Marketing Group, founded by Florian von Wangenheim in 2013, is a pioneering research group at ETH Zurich dedicated to exploring the intersection of marketing, technology, and societal impact.

The current PhD position offers an exciting opportunity to work with two centres within the Chair on managerially-relevant applied research:

• The Mobiliar Lab for Analytics at ETH Zurich develops and tests digital interactions using emerging technologies and artificial intelligence.
• The Centre for AI Value identifies and implements AI applications to generate economic value. It bridges academic AI research with practical business applications, focusing on customer service, multimodal data modelling, and process automation

During your PhD, you will examine how conversational AI can be deployed effectively to frontline service interactions with customers or as a support tool for employees. Projects will explore success factors in designing and deploying Conversational AI. Research activities will involve analysis of primary and secondary data, in both controlled and field settings. The successful candidate will shape projects and research questions within this overarching scope, whilst working alongside closely industry partners and reacting to emergent research opportunities.

We are currently seeking a doctoral researcher with both technical knowledge and skills related to the technical foundations of conversational AI as well as domain knowledge on how and why it can be deployed effectively. You should have knowledge and skills in both data analytics (e.g. machine learning, statistics, econometrics) and behavioural sciences (e.g. experimental design, survey research, application/development of managerially relevant theory). Software engineering skills (e.g. REST API development, SQL/NoSQL databases, cloud deployment (AWS/Azure/GCP), Docker) are also very welcome.

Responsibilities

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Using data and technology to conduct managerially relevant research
• Collaborating with experts and industry partners
• Attending international conferences to share your work
• Publishing in top scientific journals in Marketing and Information Systems fields (e.g., Journal of Marketing, Marketing Science, Management Information Systems Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Decision Support Systems etc.).
• Communicating and engaging with the public
• Teaching support and supervision under the umbrella of the Chair of Technology Marketing, D-MTEC

Profile

Essential requirements:

• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English
• Master’s degree that blends managerial knowhow and technical skills: e.g., AI Systems and Engineering Management, Business Analytics, Quantitative Marketing, Applied Artificial Intelligence
• Strong domain knowledge in the topic of Conversational AI
• Strong general interest in the intersection between technology and management
• Proficiency in all stages of quantitative data analyses (e.g., using Python or R): from data wrangling and feature engineering to running and evaluating models
• Comfortable taking a lead role in research meetings with project partners and networking in Switzerland
• Highly organised with exemplary project management skills
• Ability to work collaboratively in an interdisciplinary team

Desirable requirements:

• Fluent or Native in German is highly desirable.
• Technical experience on how to implement Conversational AI in managerial settings
• Technical experience with transformer models
• Familiarity with mixed methods research
• Software engineering skills (e.g., REST API development, SQL/NoSQL databases, cloud deployment (AWS/Azure/GCP), Docker)
• Experience working in research and/or academia

Workplace

We offer

• Your job with impact: Become part of ETH Zurich, which not only supports your professional development, but also actively contributes to positive change in society
• You can expect numerous benefits, such as public transport season tickets and car sharing, a wide range of sports offered by the ASVZ, childcare and attractive pension benefits