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David Holtz

Assistant Professor, Columbia Business School

David Holtz is an assistant professor in the Decisions, Risk, and Operations (DRO) Division at Columbia Business School. He is also a Research Affiliate at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. His research broadly examines the impact of new and disruptive technologies on business and society, with particular emphasis on the design of online marketplaces and platforms, the business and societal effects of emerging technologies such as personalization algorithms and generative AI, and the development of experimental methods suited to complex, interconnected settings.

Prior to graduate school, David worked full-time as a data scientist in Silicon Valley, most recently at Airbnb. He holds a PhD in Management (Information Technology) and an SM in Management Research from the MIT Sloan School of Management, an MA in Physics & Astronomy from Johns Hopkins University, and an AB in Physics (with a certificate in Theater & Dance) from Princeton University.

To learn more about David’s research, please visit his google scholar page or download his full curriculum vitae.

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Featured publications

Research Papers Prompt Adaptation as a Dynamic Complement in Generative AI Systems

April 12, 2026

  • David Holtz | Assistant Professor, Columbia Business School
  • Benjamin Manning | Ph.D. Candidate
  • Eaman Jahani | Assistant Professor, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland
  • Hong-Yi Tu Ye | PhD Candidate
    • Joe Zhang | Stanford University
    Mohammed Alsobay | Microsoft Research
    Christos Nicolaides | University of Cyprus
    Siddharth Suri | Microsoft Research
    This paper studies prompt adaptation—how users adjust their inputs in response to evolving model behavior—using a common experimental design applied to two preregistered tasks with 3,750 total participants who submitted nearly 37,000 prompts.