Machine Learning and AI Expert Professor Dennis Zhang Affiliates with Compass Lexecon

We are delighted to announce that Dennis Zhang, a professor of operations and marketing at Washington University in St. Louis’s Olin Business School, has affiliated with Compass Lexecon. Professor Zhang is an expert in machine learning, the economics of AI-powered business tools, digital platforms, online marketplaces, retail, and advertising. His research focuses on how firms use data, algorithms, experiments, and marketplace rules to shape consumer behavior, supplier incentives, and platform performance.

Professor Zhang's work is grounded in research with major digital platforms and retailers including Alibaba, Amazon, Airbnb, Cainiao, Kuaishou, NetEase, VIPKid, and Halara. This work includes recommender-system design at NetEase Music as well as human–AI interaction and algorithm design in Alibaba's supply-chain and e-commerce operations. His broader experience involves AI experimentation on content platforms, and large-scale empirical studies of advertising effectiveness, pricing, online education, retail operations, marketplace design, and platform governance.

Professor Zhang’s recent work examines generative AI-driven market changes, such as the impact of AI search on content platforms and how agentic coding tools affect developer productivity and market competition in the iOS app marketplace. He has also studied how privacy features and recommender-system diversity can be designed to optimize user welfare and platform performance using large-scale field experiments with platforms.

Professor Zhang's research has appeared in major economics and business journals, as well as at leading machine-learning conferences, including ICML and NeurIPS. He received the 2023 Best Operations Management Paper Award from Management Science and the 2022 Early Career Award from the Production and Operations Management Society. Professor Zhang is an area editor for machine learning and data science at Operations Research and an associate editor at Management Science, Marketing Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, and the Journal of Marketing Research. The New York Times, NPR, and The Globe and Mail have referenced his analyses. Prior to his academic career, Professor Zhang worked at Google.

Compass Lexecon President and Chairman Daniel Fischel commented, “Professor Zhang’s wealth of knowledge in machine learning and AI will be critical to our clients navigating increasingly complex data challenges. We are thrilled that he has affiliated with us.”

Professor Zhang added, “I'm excited to join Compass Lexecon's top-notch team of expert economists. As algorithms and AI move to the center of competition and consumer disputes, I look forward to collaborating with the team to give their clients the highest level of support.”