A new study by Yifan Yu, a Texas McCombs assistant professor of information, risk, and operations management, offers companies guidance on how to balance the promise and perils of AI for customer care.

With McCombs postdoctoral researcher Wendao Xue, he analyzes AI systems that detect human emotions — so-called emotion AI — and how companies might deploy them in various kinds of scenarios.

Using artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze electrocardiograms (ECG) improved detection of severe heart attacks, including those that presented with unconventional symptoms, or atypical ECG patterns, and reduced false positives, according to a study published in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions and simultaneously presented at TCT 2025 in San Francisco.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, aid organizations worldwide struggled to identify vulnerable households quickly and fairly. Many people who needed help were left behind.

Woojin Jung, an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Social Work, said she has found a better strategy. Her team has developed a method that blends sociodemographic data and household surveys with community perceptions and satellite imagery to predict urban poverty – and to put people at the center of aid targeting.