What marketing campaigns actually bring in customers? Can AI identify a promising prospect before a salesperson does? And which markets should a growing company enter next? Starting in the fall 2026 semester, students at Masaryk University’s Faculty of Economics and Administration in Brno, Czech Republic, will have an opportunity to work on those questions using real projects from Newsmatics. The partnership is designed to move AI, marketing analytics and business strategy beyond classroom exercises, with student teams presenting their findings directly to company leadership and potentially seeing their ideas implemented.
AI education is increasingly moving away from hypothetical exercises and toward the messy datasets, uncertain assumptions and business constraints that professionals encounter every day. A new partnership between Masaryk University and Newsmatics is putting that approach into practice by giving economics and business students access to real company problems.
Beginning with the fall 2026 semester, small teams at Masaryk University’s Faculty of Economics and Administration will work on projects that Newsmatics is currently exploring. Depending on the project, students could analyze customer acquisition, marketing effectiveness, sales opportunities, international expansion or the use of AI in customer-facing operations.
The difference from a conventional university assignment is the intended outcome. Students will present their findings to Newsmatics leadership rather than simply submitting work for academic evaluation. In some cases, their recommendations could be tested or incorporated into the company’s operations.
That creates a two-way exchange. Students get exposure to real business data and decision-making, while Newsmatics gains an opportunity to examine problems from researchers and emerging professionals who may approach them differently from an internal team.
Among the initial questions are some familiar challenges for modern marketing organizations: which activities actually generate new customers, which ones encourage existing customers to return, and where additional investment is likely to produce the greatest commercial impact.
Those questions are becoming more complicated as businesses accumulate data across marketing platforms, websites, customer interactions and sales systems. Having access to data is no longer the difficult part for many organizations. The harder problem is determining which signals matter and translating them into decisions.
AI adds another layer.
A student team could, for example, investigate whether machine-learning models can identify prospects that are likely to become customers before a sales representative recognizes the opportunity. Another project could examine whether AI tools can improve customer-service workflows or help companies communicate differently with distinct market segments.
For marketing and revenue teams, these are practical applications of AI rather than technology demonstrations. They involve questions about prediction, segmentation, attribution and customer behavior — areas where the quality of the underlying data can matter as much as the AI model itself.
International expansion is another potential project area. Determining which country to enter next requires companies to weigh factors such as market size, customer demand, competition, acquisition costs and operational complexity. Data analysis and AI can help identify patterns across those variables, but the resulting recommendations still require business judgment.
That combination of technology and judgment is one reason industry-university partnerships are becoming more relevant to AI education.
Newsmatics already has a relationship with Masaryk University’s Faculty of Informatics and Faculty of Social Studies, where students have participated in projects involving software engineering, AI and data science. Some participants have subsequently moved into longer-term professional positions with the company.
The new collaboration broadens that relationship into business and economics.
David Rothstein, CEO of Newsmatics, said the company wants students to experiment with ideas while they are still at the university and understand what happens when those ideas are applied outside the classroom.
The arrangement also gives students exposure to the operational side of AI. Newsmatics employees will participate in classroom sessions and share experiences from working with AI, monitoring how news moves across international markets and developing media products for audiences in different countries.
That industry context is important because AI skills increasingly extend beyond model development. Marketing analysts, product managers, sales teams and business strategists are all becoming users of AI systems, whether they are working with predictive analytics, generative AI assistants, automated research tools or customer-service agents.
For universities, partnerships like this can provide a bridge between technical skills and those broader applications.
For companies, the model can also function as an early talent pipeline. Students participating in the projects may have access to paid internships, part-time positions and thesis topics based on Newsmatics projects. Some could eventually move into full-time roles after graduation.
That makes the initiative more than a classroom collaboration. It potentially gives Newsmatics access to students who have already demonstrated their ability to work with the company’s data, products and business problems.
AI Skills Are Moving Closer to Business Operations
The broader shift is visible across the technology sector. Generative AI adoption is increasingly spreading from experimental use into functions such as marketing, sales, customer service and business analysis. McKinsey’s 2025 global AI survey found that 88% of respondents said their organizations regularly use AI in at least one business function, although most organizations were still working toward scaling AI across the enterprise.
For students, that means technical familiarity with AI is becoming useful even when their eventual jobs are not directly related to machine-learning engineering.
A marketing student may need to understand how an AI model evaluates customer data. A sales analyst may work with predictive scoring. A business strategist may use AI to compare markets. A customer-experience manager may be responsible for deploying an AI assistant while monitoring its performance.
The Newsmatics-Masaryk University partnership reflects that broader convergence.
Rather than asking students to learn AI in isolation, the projects place the technology inside real commercial questions: What drives growth? Which customers are most valuable? Where should the business expand? How can technology make an existing process more effective?
Those are questions businesses will continue to face regardless of which AI tools dominate the market.
The more interesting test for the partnership will therefore be whether student analysis can produce recommendations that survive contact with real operating conditions. A promising model or clever strategy is only useful if the data supports it, the business can implement it and the resulting change can be measured.
That is precisely what makes the arrangement different from a typical academic exercise — and potentially valuable for both sides.
Market Landscape
Universities and technology companies are increasingly linking education with real-world AI deployment as employers look for graduates who can apply AI rather than simply describe it.
Marketing, sales and business analytics are particularly suitable areas for this model because organizations already generate large volumes of customer and operational data. The challenge is turning those datasets into useful decisions around acquisition, retention, segmentation, forecasting and expansion.
The Newsmatics partnership adds another dimension by giving students exposure to an international media and technology business. If successful, similar collaborations could become a practical route for companies to evaluate emerging talent while allowing universities to keep curricula connected to rapidly changing AI workflows.
Top Insights
- Masaryk University students will work on real Newsmatics projects involving marketing analytics, AI, customer acquisition, sales effectiveness and international market opportunities.
- Student teams will present findings directly to company leadership, creating a feedback loop between academic research and real commercial decision-making.
- Potential projects include identifying high-value prospects, measuring marketing effectiveness, improving customer-service AI and developing strategies for different market segments.
- The partnership expands Newsmatics’ existing collaboration with Masaryk University’s informatics and social-sciences faculties into economics and business applications.
- Internships, thesis projects and potential employment give the initiative a talent-development dimension beyond traditional university-industry research partnerships.
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