Verizon Leader and 20 MIT Course Peers Publish 'The AI Anthology'

From a course choice to a book

Jha holds a bachelor's degree in information technology from the University of Calcutta and earned her MBA while working at Verizon, where she continues to build her career. Looking for a way to engage more deeply with AI, she turned to MIT, which she grew up seeing as "the mecca for anybody who is in engineering and technology."

MIT xPRO's AI for Senior Executives stood out to her mainly because it included an in-person component, unlike other programs that took place fully online. Jha acknowledges the program was a significant investment of time and money, but she views it as one of "the best decisions [she] made." According to MIT Open Learning, the experience gave her professional relationships and the confidence to develop multiple AI solutions for Verizon.

She then co-wrote "The AI Anthology" with some of her peers. The book is designed to support other leaders who face similar challenges with AI.

A hospital stay and a second cohort

Her path through the program was not straightforward. Two months before she was due to finish, Jha spent two weeks in the hospital with a severe infection and could not graduate with her original cohort. With help from MIT staff, she joined the next cohort, which gave her another five days on campus with 100 brand-new peers.

Jha says she valued meeting new people, and she also appreciated that the program's content had been refreshed just six months later. She describes the extra "five days of immersion" as a vital part of her learning. She estimates that "30 percent of what I was learning was from the program, material, and professor [while] 70 percent was my peers and the interactions."

The idea that AI is personal

The book idea came during a "salon gathering" at the home of Manolis Kellis, a professor in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Students shared personal stories about AI. One stayed with Jha: a peer whose motivation to explore AI solutions came from her work to find a cure for her mother's Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

Jha realized at that moment that AI is personal. She wanted to capture perspectives that go beyond operational efficiency and revenue growth, and she raised the idea of a book with her peers. One year later, she and 20 other leaders released "The AI Anthology."

Rethinking how success is measured

Jha hopes readers take away the importance of thinking differently. She believes leaders may be missing a fundamental shift: "We are still kind of stuck in this traditional measurement of success," she says. "We cherish revenue; we like cost-cutting and time-saving, and converting them to dollars."

She considers that mindset understandable in corporate America but argues leaders must move beyond it to find more empowerment through AI. In her view, future generations are already asking different questions, such as "What can I get in the quality of my life?"

Jha says AI adoption is not optional for businesses and that everyone must learn about and embrace it. At Verizon, she sees the company as providing "critical infrastructure" to groups such as first responders or children, and she finds it empowering that AI can help with that responsibility. She also notes that AI lets her accelerate progress when she might previously have needed a larger team.

What comes next

Jha is now working on an initiative to support small and medium-sized businesses navigating AI implementation. Her goal is to help them understand which tools they need, how AI fits their specific operational model, and how they can measure success, so they can focus on their strengths and drive value.