Stevens Business and AI Video Pitch: Explain the Business Behind the AI

Stevens Business and AI Video Pitch: Explain the Business Behind the AI

Editorial overview

The Stevens School of Business hosts the High School Business and Artificial Intelligence Video Pitch Competition. Its central question is commercial as well as technical: who has a problem, what changes for them and why would the proposed solution be worth using? No coding experience or working prototype is required. That distinction makes the opportunity accessible to students with a thoughtful concept, but it does not make a vague promise about AI persuasive. The reasoning has to carry the pitch when there is no finished product to demonstrate.

A published first-place example is GradeLift, Aryan Saksena’s rubric-aligned AI revision coach, which gives feedback on a student’s own draft rather than generating replacement text. The value of that example is not a topic to imitate. It shows how specifying the tool's role changes the business idea: the user, the task and the boundary of the intervention become easier to understand. CompeteMap would therefore recommend this contest to students willing to investigate a need and explain a mechanism, not just name an emerging technology. The short format rewards selection and clarity. Preparation means deciding what evidence deserves the viewer's limited attention, while resisting both an exaggerated market claim and a technical explanation that leaves the customer behind.

Quick Facts

For current dates, eligibility and registration details, see the Stevens High School Business and Artificial Intelligence Video Pitch Competition competition page.

Review Evaluation

Rated Advanced. The challenge is fitting a credible problem, useful AI role, intended customers and business value into a clear short presentation, supported by research rather than technical buzzwords.

Identify a user before inventing a feature

A broad topic such as food waste, education or small-business efficiency is not yet a customer problem. Narrow it to a person making a particular decision. What do they do now? Where does that approach fail? What would they have to stop doing, learn or pay for if they adopted the proposed solution?

The questions need not lead to a large research exercise. A few careful conversations, credible public information or a close examination of an existing service can be more informative than a survey sent to people with no connection to the problem. Keep track of what the evidence establishes and what remains a hypothesis.

Then state the value without naming the technology. If the benefit cannot be explained without the phrase artificial intelligence, the idea may still be too abstract. The viewer needs to understand a useful change before being asked to appreciate the machinery behind it.

This is also a way to keep a project proportionate. A concept that claims to transform an entire industry can be difficult to defend in a brief presentation. A clearly described improvement to one recurring task gives the student something concrete to investigate and explain.

Locate the AI inside the workflow

Consider three stages: the information entering the system, the inference or generation the system performs and the decision someone makes afterwards. A meaningful explanation connects those stages. It might involve recognising a pattern, comparing alternatives or producing a structured response, but the contribution needs to be more specific than making an app intelligent.

The published GradeLift example is helpful here because feedback and replacement writing are different interventions. Our editorial inference is that a narrow task can make both a useful outcome and a responsible boundary easier to describe. That does not prove the same approach will suit every proposed business, and it is not a promise about how the current entries will be assessed.

Ask what would happen if the system were wrong. Would a user notice? Could a person review the output? Does the idea depend on data the student has no realistic way to obtain? These are concept-development questions, not a requirement to build a complete safety system. Addressing one obvious limitation convincingly is usually more useful than announcing that every risk has been solved.

Do not use the presence of an AI component to avoid comparing alternatives. The customer may already have a spreadsheet, a search tool, a human adviser or a simpler rule-based process. Explaining why the proposed approach is preferable is part of the business case, not an optional technical footnote.

Design the video around one understandable claim

Submit a video pitch of two minutes or less. No coding experience or working prototype is required; use thoughtful research and explain how the concept could work.

Short does not mean rushed. Write a plain-language outline that establishes the need, introduces the idea, explains the AI contribution and makes the proposed value credible. Allocate time according to what a new viewer must understand, not according to which slide was most enjoyable to make.

Record a rough version early. Listen without watching the images. Does the explanation still make sense? Then watch without sound: is the visual material illustrating a decision, or merely repeating every spoken sentence? A simple diagram, a mock interface or a concrete example may clarify more than animated background graphics.

Keep estimates separate from demonstrated facts. A possible customer base is not the same as demand, and an imagined saving is not a measured result. A student can be persuasive while acknowledging that a concept would need testing. The aim is a coherent case, not a manufactured appearance of commercial certainty.

Ask a listener unfamiliar with the idea to summarise it in their own words. If they describe a different user or cannot identify where AI contributes, revise the explanation before improving the production. Clear sound and readable images matter, but expensive equipment cannot resolve an unclear argument.

Treat the current packet as part of preparation

Students enrolled in grades 9–11 during the relevant academic year, including public-school, private-school and homeschooled students.

Entries must be submitted individually.

Individual online sign-up and video upload through the instructions sent by the organiser.

The fee is USD 25.

Do not assume that a prior version's charge, schedule, assessment weights or upload specifications still apply. The current public call identifies what to do first; the packet supplies details that need checking before the finished video is prepared. Allow time to read it rather than treating receipt of the email as an administrative step to postpone.

The organiser is based in the United States, but the checked current call does not explicitly settle geographic eligibility. Families outside the US should ask the organiser before paying instead of inferring worldwide access from an earlier participant's location. Parent or guardian consent may also need attention, and entrants should understand the stated educational and promotional use of submitted work.

Keep research notes, versions of the explanation and copies of the files sent. These are practical records of the student's decisions, not additional compulsory materials. They help the entrant remain in control of the concept and explain it naturally when discussing what they learned.

Key Takeaways

The strongest reason to attempt the Stevens pitch is to test whether an AI-enabled idea makes sense as a business proposition. Start with a particular user, put the AI contribution in a visible workflow and explain one credible benefit. Use the limited running time to sharpen the reasoning, not to accelerate a long script. A thoughtful concept with honest boundaries is a better foundation than an impressive collection of technical terms.

Sources checked

Checked on 27 October 2026. Consult the competition page and the current advance packet for scheduling, detailed requirements and updates.

• https://www.stevens.edu/school-business/high-school-entrepreneurship-and-artificial-intelligence-ai-video-pitch
• https://undergradadmissions.stevens.edu/register/?id=60becd55-113d-4c25-b07f-2983fe31c1b8
• https://www.stevens.edu/news/school-of-business-announces-winners-of-2026-high-school-entrepreneurship