This case won the Overall and Outstanding Compact Case category at The Case Centre Awards and Competitions 2024. #CaseAwards2024
Who – the protagonist
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google.
What?
ChatGPT is the AI chatbot by parent company OpenAI that took the internet by storm upon its release on 30 November 2022.
By the end of December 2022, ChatGPT already had 21 million monthly visitors, with OpenAI expecting $200 million in revenue by 2023, and $1 billion by 2024.
Fellow Silicon Valley giant Google was known for leading the search engine market, whilst also boasting products such as Voice Assistant.
Why?
Some Google employees were worried that the company’s lack of a chatbot service was leaving them behind.
And it wasn’t only ChatGPT who posed a threat, but TikTok and Instagram had also begun eating into Google’s share of the search market as younger consumers increasingly turned to search on visual platforms.
Addressing employees’ concerns, Google’s Head of AI Jeff Dean iterated that the technology wasn’t where it needed to be for a broad rollout and that current publically available models had issues. Some of Google’s executives were worried that the company’s reputation would suffer if the tech firm moved too fast towards AI chat technology.
Where?
ChatGPT is used by tens of millions of people around the world.
When?
Within five days of launching, OpenAI estimated ChatGPT already had over one million users.
Key quote
What next?
Sundar had important questions to answer.
Was Google search really dying? And how should they respond to the AI chatbot phenomena?
Google had to keep pace with its rivals.
These are Harris' first ever Case Awards. ESSEC Business School has now won on five occasions, including two Overall prizes (2019 and 2024).
Winning the award
Harris said: “Winning the award and the competition means a lot to me, and feels like the culmination of many years of striving to improve my effectiveness as a case teacher. It is truly satisfying that so many colleagues in top schools and around the world find the case valuable for their own teaching and for enriching their students' learning journeys.
“This has not been a solitary journey, as I have tremendously benefited from discussions with my colleagues at ESSEC Business School including professors Thomas Huber, Julien Malaurent, Christoph Mueller-Bloch, and Lauren Waardenburg. I have been teaching almost exclusively with cases for the past eight years, and it is important to note that I have benefited from teaching great cases written by other professors including Robert Gregory (University of Miami), Carlos Garcia Pont, Thomas Klueter, Luis Palencia, Sandra Sieber, Edi Soler, Josep Valor, and Juan Carlos Vázquez-Dodero at IESE Business School.”
Case popularity
Harris continued: “In a world that AI and digital technologies more broadly are bound to perpetually transform companies and industries alike, managing emerging technologies and their implications for today’s businesses has become more important than ever. Based on feedback received from other educators, executive participants, as well as our students, I think that the case has been so popular because it does not simply follow yet another trend, but rather delves into how managers can anticipate the managerial challenges associated with the ever-increasing prevalence of emerging technologies in general and AI in particular.
“As a result, even though this is the first ChatGPT related case that was published globally, participants benefit not only from its timeliness, but also from a more nuanced understanding of the antecedents of AI disruption and how to best prepare for its impact."
Writing the case
He added: “Due to the timeliness of the case, it was particularly challenging to have the typical “what happened?” end for the case discussion, and having participants trying to guesstimate the outcome. Ultimately, I think that this has resulted in crafting a much stronger case, as it forced me to look beyond large language models (LLMs) as a novel phenomenon, thinking more carefully about its similarities to technologies that emerged in the past, as well as what is truly unique about this particular technology in terms of its value proposition. The case and the associated class discussion leads to a rich discussion that enables participants to identify the differential characteristics of past, present, and hopefully future emerging technologies.”
Case writing advice
He explained: “My top tips for a good case are to write cases that have a clear, real-world dilemma that sparks conversation and can keep participants truly engaged; and to strive for brevity, as intentionally short cases avoid presenting unnecessary information, while also directing the attention of participants only towards information that is necessary to spark an insightful conversation during class.
“Considering that our students have so many distractions - outside and unfortunately, often inside the class - and executives have very little time to prepare, this latter tip seems more of a necessity, rather than a choice. This why I am truly happy that this case is also the compact case competition winner!"
Teaching the case
Harris concluded: “Participants appreciate that the case discussion provides takeaways that they can use to prepare for the impact of LLMs on today’s businesses, delves into how emerging technologies become disruptive by challenging existing business models, and they have the opportunity to gain insights on how companies can build viable AI business models.”
Discover how this case works in the classroom.
The Competition was judged by Kasra Ferdows, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University; Martina Pasquini, IE Business School; Sam Hariharan, Babson College; Scott Andrews, Worcester Business School; and Vicky Lester, The Case Centre.
“This is a nice short case to discuss one of the most critical issues at this time. It's well written and the author has provided useful background data and analysis to help the instructor. Well done.”
“This is an interesting and novel case, with impact for the industry and the teaching model nowadays. It includes a very good comparison between the two companies and a good application of theory meaning it has a chance to have broader application.”
“The teaching note provides a really interesting insight into how this could be delivered in class, with a really helpful board plan. The supplementary material is also really useful.”
“This is definitely a very interesting and topical case with lots of potential for some good class discussions."
The case
Who – the protagonist
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google.
What?
ChatGPT is the AI chatbot by parent company OpenAI that took the internet by storm upon its release on 30 November 2022.
By the end of December 2022, ChatGPT already had 21 million monthly visitors, with OpenAI expecting $200 million in revenue by 2023, and $1 billion by 2024.
Fellow Silicon Valley giant Google was known for leading the search engine market, whilst also boasting products such as Voice Assistant.
Why?
Some Google employees were worried that the company’s lack of a chatbot service was leaving them behind.
And it wasn’t only ChatGPT who posed a threat, but TikTok and Instagram had also begun eating into Google’s share of the search market as younger consumers increasingly turned to search on visual platforms.
Addressing employees’ concerns, Google’s Head of AI Jeff Dean iterated that the technology wasn’t where it needed to be for a broad rollout and that current publically available models had issues. Some of Google’s executives were worried that the company’s reputation would suffer if the tech firm moved too fast towards AI chat technology.
Where?
ChatGPT is used by tens of millions of people around the world.
When?
Within five days of launching, OpenAI estimated ChatGPT already had over one million users.
Key quote
What next?
Sundar had important questions to answer.
Was Google search really dying? And how should they respond to the AI chatbot phenomena?
Google had to keep pace with its rivals.
Author perspective
These are Harris' first ever Case Awards. ESSEC Business School has now won on five occasions, including two Overall prizes (2019 and 2024).
Winning the award
Harris said: “Winning the award and the competition means a lot to me, and feels like the culmination of many years of striving to improve my effectiveness as a case teacher. It is truly satisfying that so many colleagues in top schools and around the world find the case valuable for their own teaching and for enriching their students' learning journeys.
“This has not been a solitary journey, as I have tremendously benefited from discussions with my colleagues at ESSEC Business School including professors Thomas Huber, Julien Malaurent, Christoph Mueller-Bloch, and Lauren Waardenburg. I have been teaching almost exclusively with cases for the past eight years, and it is important to note that I have benefited from teaching great cases written by other professors including Robert Gregory (University of Miami), Carlos Garcia Pont, Thomas Klueter, Luis Palencia, Sandra Sieber, Edi Soler, Josep Valor, and Juan Carlos Vázquez-Dodero at IESE Business School.”
Case popularity
Harris continued: “In a world that AI and digital technologies more broadly are bound to perpetually transform companies and industries alike, managing emerging technologies and their implications for today’s businesses has become more important than ever. Based on feedback received from other educators, executive participants, as well as our students, I think that the case has been so popular because it does not simply follow yet another trend, but rather delves into how managers can anticipate the managerial challenges associated with the ever-increasing prevalence of emerging technologies in general and AI in particular.
“As a result, even though this is the first ChatGPT related case that was published globally, participants benefit not only from its timeliness, but also from a more nuanced understanding of the antecedents of AI disruption and how to best prepare for its impact."
Writing the case
He added: “Due to the timeliness of the case, it was particularly challenging to have the typical “what happened?” end for the case discussion, and having participants trying to guesstimate the outcome. Ultimately, I think that this has resulted in crafting a much stronger case, as it forced me to look beyond large language models (LLMs) as a novel phenomenon, thinking more carefully about its similarities to technologies that emerged in the past, as well as what is truly unique about this particular technology in terms of its value proposition. The case and the associated class discussion leads to a rich discussion that enables participants to identify the differential characteristics of past, present, and hopefully future emerging technologies.”
Case writing advice
He explained: “My top tips for a good case are to write cases that have a clear, real-world dilemma that sparks conversation and can keep participants truly engaged; and to strive for brevity, as intentionally short cases avoid presenting unnecessary information, while also directing the attention of participants only towards information that is necessary to spark an insightful conversation during class.
“Considering that our students have so many distractions - outside and unfortunately, often inside the class - and executives have very little time to prepare, this latter tip seems more of a necessity, rather than a choice. This why I am truly happy that this case is also the compact case competition winner!"
Teaching the case
Harris concluded: “Participants appreciate that the case discussion provides takeaways that they can use to prepare for the impact of LLMs on today’s businesses, delves into how emerging technologies become disruptive by challenging existing business models, and they have the opportunity to gain insights on how companies can build viable AI business models.”
Instructor viewpoint
Discover how this case works in the classroom.
Judges viewpoint
The Competition was judged by Kasra Ferdows, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University; Martina Pasquini, IE Business School; Sam Hariharan, Babson College; Scott Andrews, Worcester Business School; and Vicky Lester, The Case Centre.
“This is a nice short case to discuss one of the most critical issues at this time. It's well written and the author has provided useful background data and analysis to help the instructor. Well done.”
“This is an interesting and novel case, with impact for the industry and the teaching model nowadays. It includes a very good comparison between the two companies and a good application of theory meaning it has a chance to have broader application.”
“The teaching note provides a really interesting insight into how this could be delivered in class, with a really helpful board plan. The supplementary material is also really useful.”
“This is definitely a very interesting and topical case with lots of potential for some good class discussions."
