Ziqi Zhong, PhD Candidate in Quantitative Marketing, presents his research.
The Department of Management is delighted to share that Ziqi Zhong, PhD candidate in Quantitative Marketing at the LSE Department of Management, has been awarded the Best Paper Award in the AI & Technology Track at the 2025 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference (ANZMAC) for his paper “From Privacy Washing to Sustainable Data Strategies: A Theory-Based AI Approach”.
Ziqi said: “I’m honoured to receive the Best Paper Award and I’m grateful for the support I’ve received throughout this project. The recognition reinforces my aim to build rigorous, theory-driven AI tools that help improve transparency and trust in digital environments, and it’s an encouraging milestone for my doctoral research and future career.”
The paper develops analytical models and an AI-based evaluation agent, PrivaAI, to assess the authenticity and quality of privacy policies at scale. Using data from 10 million websites and behavioural experiments, it shows how firms can adopt sustainable data strategies, identifies industry and regulatory patterns, and uncovers an “authenticity paradox” in how consumers judge privacy communication.
Several AI modules of the paper have also been accepted and selected for oral presentation at the 2026 conference of Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), a flagship conference in AI and computer science, and recently featured by MIT Technology Review (China).
ANZMAC 2025 will be held in Sydney from 1 to 3 December 2025. Hosted at Macquarie University, ANZMAC 2025 brings together academics, industry leaders, and marketing professionals to explore the theme: “Riding the Waves: Navigating Marketing’s Dynamic Landscape.”
Friday 28 November 2025