Marco Iansiti is the David Sarnoff Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. His research examines digital innovation and transformation, with a focus on strategy, business models and the processes through which organisations develop new products and capabilities. He studies both firms and the networks of organisations in which they operate.
Iansiti’s work connects technology and operations with executive decisions about competition and value creation. His teaching has included courses on product development, new ventures, digital innovation and business analytics. He is also a co-founder of Keystone Strategy, a strategy and economics consulting firm, extending his academic interests into advisory work.
With Karim Lakhani, he wrote Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World. The book examines how data, analytics and AI can change an organisation’s operating architecture, including its capacity to scale, extend into different activities and learn from use. It also considers the leadership responsibilities that arise when decisions and processes become more digitally connected.
His earlier books address complementary aspects of organisational strategy. The Keystone Advantage, co-authored with Roy Levien, examines the dynamics of business ecosystems. One Strategy, written with Steven Sinofsky, considers the relationship between organisation, planning and decision-making. His current institutional work includes the Trustworthy AI Lab at Harvard Business School’s AI Institute.
For executive audiences, Iansiti is particularly relevant when a company needs to connect AI ambition with the way its business actually operates. A useful brief might concern the architecture behind scale, the relationships within a platform ecosystem or governance when a model’s effects extend across many users. His perspective asks leaders to examine the system and its consequences, rather than assuming that adopting advanced technology alone creates a more competitive organisation.
