Business & Finance
Mon, November 17, 2025
Bucknell Professor Leverages AI to Decode Business Language
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Published in Business and Finance on Monday, November 17th 2025 at 20:01 GMT by The Daily Item- 🞛 This publication is a summary or evaluation of another publication
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Bucknell Professor Leverages AI to Decode the Language of Business
Bucknell University is not only a bastion of traditional liberal‑arts education; it’s also becoming a laboratory for cutting‑edge artificial intelligence research. In a recent feature on The Daily Item, Bucknell English professor Dr. Evelyn Carter explains how she is using AI to dissect, analyze, and ultimately improve the language that shapes today’s business world. The article, published on August 12, 2023, offers an inside look at a project that blends computational linguistics, business communication, and ethical considerations around the use of language‑based AI.
A Career Bridging Language and Business
Dr. Carter earned her Ph.D. in English from Stanford and later took a position in Bucknell’s Department of English and Communication. “I’ve always been fascinated by how words are not just vehicles of meaning but also instruments of power,” she tells The Daily Item. She notes that corporate language often carries implicit messages about hierarchy, inclusion, and strategy—messages that can either empower or marginalize stakeholders. Her background in rhetoric and discourse analysis laid the groundwork for her recent work in AI‑driven business linguistics.
The AI Engine: A Custom GPT‑Inspired Model
Central to Carter’s project is an AI model that borrows from OpenAI’s GPT architecture but has been fine‑tuned on a massive corpus of business documents: annual reports, earnings calls, internal memos, marketing copy, and press releases. She explains that the model was trained on a dataset of roughly 50 million words, curated to reflect diverse sectors—finance, tech, manufacturing, and nonprofit. “Fine‑tuning lets the model learn the idiosyncratic syntax and semantics of business speech,” she says.
Carter’s research lab built an interface that allows researchers to input a business text and receive a “semantic map” of the document. The map highlights key business concepts, sentiment tones, rhetorical devices, and even potential biases. The interface also scores a document on its readability and inclusivity, using metrics derived from the American Psychological Association’s guidelines and the Harvard Business Review’s “Inclusive Language Index.”
Methodology: From Text to Insight
The article walks readers through Carter’s experimental design. First, the AI processes raw text to identify named entities (companies, executives, products) and then classifies them according to semantic roles—such as “subject,” “agent,” or “beneficiary.” Next, the system applies sentiment analysis and calculates a “tone spectrum” that ranges from “confident” to “uncertain.” Importantly, the AI also flags phrases that could be considered jargon or buzzwords.
To validate the AI’s interpretations, Carter’s team conducted a series of “human‑in‑the‑loop” checks. Senior communication managers at local firms reviewed the AI’s semantic maps and rated their usefulness on a Likert scale. Results indicated a 75 % agreement rate between the AI’s output and human judgments—an impressive figure given the complexity of business discourse.
Key Findings: Jargon, Tone, and Transparency
One of the most striking insights the article highlights is the prevalence of “buzzword clutter.” The AI flagged an average of 18 buzzwords per 1,000 words in marketing materials, a number that climbed to 35 in internal memos. “Buzzwords often obscure meaning rather than clarify it,” Carter notes. She further discovered that documents with higher buzzword density tended to have lower readability scores, potentially alienating non‑expert stakeholders.
The sentiment analysis also revealed that executive communications often lean toward a “risk‑averse” tone, especially in financial reports. However, the AI was able to detect subtle shifts in tone during earnings calls that correlated with upcoming product launches—a nuance that could be invaluable for investors and analysts.
Another finding was the identification of implicit bias in corporate language. The AI’s bias detector, which draws on a curated list of gendered and culturally loaded terms, flagged instances where certain demographic groups were described in less favorable terms. In one case, a product launch document repeatedly associated the term “innovative” with male pronouns but used “efficient” to describe the same product when referred to female employees—a discrepancy that could signal unconscious bias.
Applications and Ethical Implications
The article emphasizes that Carter’s AI isn’t just an academic curiosity; it has practical applications. Bucknell’s business school is already piloting the tool with local firms to help them craft clearer, more inclusive communications. The university also offers workshops on “AI‑Assisted Business Writing” for students and faculty.
However, Carter acknowledges the ethical dimensions of her work. “AI is only as unbiased as the data it’s trained on,” she says. The article links to a recent Bucknell ethics board report on AI, which outlines safeguards such as data transparency, algorithmic audits, and user education. The professor stresses that human oversight remains essential: “The AI can surface patterns, but the responsibility for interpretation lies with us.”
Future Directions
Looking ahead, Carter plans to expand the model to include non‑English business texts, thereby examining cross‑cultural differences in corporate discourse. She also intends to integrate the AI into a real‑time feedback system that can be embedded in email clients and document editors. “Imagine an AI that tells you if your quarterly report might be misinterpreted or if your pitch deck contains hidden jargon,” she says.
The article concludes with a call to action: “If you’re a business professional or a scholar interested in the intersection of language and commerce, Bucknell’s AI platform is opening doors to deeper understanding.” It invites readers to visit Bucknell’s website (link provided) to request a demo or to apply for a fellowship to contribute to the ongoing project.
Takeaway
Dr. Evelyn Carter’s project illustrates how AI can serve as a powerful lens for scrutinizing the often‑overlooked nuances of business communication. By combining computational linguistics with real‑world business data, her research not only offers a clearer picture of corporate language but also provides tools that could lead to more transparent, inclusive, and effective business practices. The Daily Item article provides a compelling snapshot of this pioneering work—one that underscores Bucknell University’s role at the forefront of interdisciplinary research in the age of AI.
Read the Full The Daily Item Article at:
[ https://www.dailyitem.com/news/bucknell-professor-uses-ai-to-understand-language-of-business/article_06a1ef90-cfb5-4617-ae51-7a5bc8572001.html ]
