Doctoral Position in Customer-Facing AI in Marketing and Service

The successful candidate will conduct original research leading to publications in top-tier international journals. Responsibilities include: Designing and running controlled experiments, including studies with live voice interaction, and preparing them for pre-registration; Using and extending the Center's existing experimental infrastructure for these studies, including prompt design as a controlled manipulation, generative voice agent pipelines, conversation logging and transcription; Extending and validating existing LLM based coding pipelines for transcript derived measures, including validation against human coded gold standards; Analysing experimental and operational data using appropriate causal and psychometric methods; Preparing and coordinating field experiments within established industry collaborations and in close coordination with senior researchers, including feasibility assessment, randomization design, and retrieval of operational outcomes; Working with multimodal embedding models and machine learning methods for content performance prediction; Presenting results at international conferences and to partner organisations; Contributing to teaching and supervising Master's theses within the Center's focus areas, alongside a limited share of administrative duties.

At the Center for AI Value, part of the Technology Marketing Group at ETH Zurich, we investigate how organisations can turn generative and multimodal AI into measurable value. Our current focus is one of the most consequential open questions in this space: how customer-facing AI should be designed when it speaks to real customers on behalf of a real firm. Generative voice agents now handle substantive service conversations, hand customers over to human employees, and generate content that reaches large professional audiences — yet the design decisions behind them are made largely by intuition. Research at the Center builds on the group's track record in data science, conversational AI, and marketing analytics and on substantial investments in on-premises GPU infrastructure that allows us to work with confidential partner data under full data control. The focus of the position is on research, aiming at publications in leading international management journals.

• Applicants must possess a Master of Science (MSc), Master of Arts (MA), or Master of Philosophy (MPhil) degree in business administration, computer science, or related fields. This includes, but is not limited to, psychology, mathematics, engineering, physics, or statistics.

• Candidates from technical backgrounds are very welcome, but should be motivated by managerial and behavioural research questions rather than by model development as such.

• A demonstrated interest in management-related disciplines is highly desirable.

• We are seeking candidates who are currently residing in Europe.

• A strong interest in experimental research and quantitative empirical methods is vital.

• Candidates should exhibit excellent organizational skills, including the ability to manage and prioritize multiple tasks effectively.

• Strong communication and writing skills in English are required, enabling effective collaboration and the preparation of scientific publications and reports.

• Fluency in both spoken and written English is mandatory.

• The ideal candidate will take initiative, be results-oriented, organized, and demonstrate creativity in problem-solving.