thesis subject :
Adoption of explainable AI and value creation in B2B digital marketing.
Thesis start date :
Septembre 2025
Name of thesis supervisor(s) :
Sylvie MICHEL (university of Bordeaux ) & Marc BIDAN (university of Nantes)
Thesis abstract :
In recent years, AI has experienced rapid growth due to significant technological advances, such as those in generative AI, to mention only the most recent and high-profile example. This acceleration in the deployment of AI brings the issue of adopting AI-based technologies to the forefront, taking on particular importance in businesses. Adopting an AI solution is not a neutral decision, particularly in ethical terms. Stakeholders may be confronted with the opacity of algorithmic decisions or recommendations. The internal workings of AI models are complex, and algorithmic processes lack transparency for business customers, who may complain about this. This “black box” can raise issues of trust and transparency, making it difficult to understand how and why a particular recommendation is made and, even more so, to ensure that these recommendations are free of representativeness biases such as gender or race biases, which can perpetuate or amplify social inequalities. In addition, the autonomy and responsibility of the company are at stake, as it can be difficult to determine who is responsible for the actions or decisions taken by AI systems.
In this context, explainable AI (XAI) can play a key role in promoting transparency and a better understanding of algorithmic decisions or recommendations, thereby strengthening customer confidence in AI systems. As a set of processes and methods, XAI represents a key advance in the field of AI by justifying the decisions made by algorithms and increasing transparency, which strengthens trust and reliability in these systems. This includes the ability to explain how AI algorithms arrive at their recommendations, identify influential factors (specific variables or characteristics of the data that have a significant impact on the recommendations), and provide clear, understandable, and accessible justifications.
