Quebec’s government has made it more difficult for out of province students to attend McGill, increasing tuition fees and requiring that more students speak French at graduation.
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Published on: 25 Sep 2025
According to a report by Quebec researchers studying social inequalities, Quebec’s economy lost $4.2 billion in 2021 due to the ongoing housing crisis — a figure the authors say is likely even higher in 2025.
Manque de logements adéquats : quels coûts sur la prospérité économique? is the first publication in a larger research project conducted by the Observatoire des inégalités du Québec with several partners.
Published on: 22 Sep 2025
What does it mean to literate in the age of artificial intelligence? According to Kate Arthur (EMBA 2021) , literacy is about more than knowing how to read or write, it’s about having the tools to understand the world around us and our active role in shaping it. Arthur’s own sense of literacy was upended when she was introduced to language of computing. Now an adviser at the Montreal AI Ethics Institute, Arthur has been exploring traditional, computing and AI literacies since the early 2000s.
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Published on: 17 Sep 2025
The use of customer service chatbots has grown rapidly. Maybe a little too rapidly, according to Vivek Astvansh, an Associate Professor of Quantitative Marketing and Analytics at McGill Desautels. The worldwide chatbot market has expanded from US$370 million in 2017 to US$2.2 billion last year, but customers are not always satisfied with the service they provide. “When shoppers want sensitive or precise information, they seek human agents, not chatbots,”says Astvansh.
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Published on: 17 Sep 2025
In a bankruptcy filing in late August, the Montreal-based luxury retailer SSENSE cited a liquidity crisis brought on partly by the unpredictable tariff regime in the United States. At the time of the filing, some independent designers who work with the company said they were owed tens of thousands of dollars, but hadn’t been paid in months. But Vivek Astvansh wouldn’t recommend taking legal action.
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Published on: 10 Sep 2025
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) programs allow consumers to pay for items in instalments. And the market for these financial products has been growing at a 12% annual rate, and is projected to reach $7.5 billion in 2025. Fintech companies like Afterpay, Flexiti and Sezzle allow users to break down major purchases into more manageeable monthly or quarterly payments.
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Published on: 4 Sep 2025
Stablecoins are a form of digital currency whose value is tied to a physical currency, such as the US dollar or Euro. Stablecoins can be easily moved between countries, avoiding costly banking fees. But whether they will be widely adopted or not is still an open question. The Bank of Canada looked into the possibility of producing a stablecoin, but quietly dropped the project.
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Published on: 3 Sep 2025
McGill Desautels MBA student Kai Zhao (MBA’25) has been recognized by Poets&Quants as one of its “MBAs To Watch” for the Class of 2025.
A former Canadian Armed Forces Logistics Officer, Zhao has distinguished himself at Desautels through his leadership as VP External of the Graduate Student Society, co-captain of the MBA Games team, and organizer of major networking events connecting students with industry professionals. He also launched a free webinar series to help graduates transition smoothly to life and work in Ontario.
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Published on: 3 Sep 2025
If it feels like customer service chatbots are everywhere, it’s because they are. The worldwide chatbot market has grown from US$370 million in 2017 to about US$2.2 billion in 2024. But customers trust human customer service representatives more than they trust AI chatbots, writes Vivek Astvansh, an Associate Professor of Quantitative Marketing and Analytics at McGill Desautels.
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Published on: 29 Aug 2025
The pushback against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs gained momentum in the first half of 2025. And while some institutions are eliminating DEI initiatives, others are rebranding them.
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Published on: 29 Aug 2025
When 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants went on strike, more than 100,000 passengers were left stranded. For many of those affected, the experience has been an overwhelming one. For stranded passengers, the Air Canada strike combines three powerful stressors: uncertainty, lack of control and crowding, writes Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour Jean-Nicolas Reyt in The Conversation. Each of these factors is stressful on its own, and combined, they can overwhelm even the most patient travellers.
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Published on: 29 Aug 2025
Buying a home can help you build household wealth, but renting has fewer overall costs, which allows you to save more of the money you earn. While the conventional wisdom has been that buying is the better financial decision for most people, sky-high real estate costs change the equation. Stock markets have also performed well in recent decades, and investing the surplus left over from renting can pad your personal finances in a big way—if you actually do it.
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Published on: 29 Aug 2025
Being an introvert or an extrovert isn’t an either-or proposition. People who fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum are called ambiverts, and ambiversion can be a beneficial trait in business leaders. Prof. Karl Moore estimates that about 20% of business leaders are true ambiverts. But ambiversion is a kind of superpower for a leader—it allows them to adapt with greater ease than people at either extreme of the spectrum.
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Published on: 15 Aug 2025
Large Canadian companies such as Rogers, RBC and BMO recently announced their employees will be required to spend more time in the office moving forward. Many employees aren’t happy about it at all. “Research tells us that employees are more productive when they can work the way they want to,” said Prof. Jean-Nicolas Reyt in an interview with Radio-Canada’s Les faits d’abord. When employees telecommute, they have a greater ability to focus and don’t spend so much time commuting to and from work.
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Published on: 15 Aug 2025
On August 1, a 35 per cent US tariff on Canadian goods came into effect. But these tariffs are less about trade and more about political leverage, says Vivek Astvansh, associate professor of quantitative marketing and analytics at McGill Desautels.
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Published on: 15 Aug 2025
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