Product Management at an AI Company
Product Management at Conversica (The Wins)
I had committed to 5 years, and even though I didn’t envision it taking as long as it did, we finally achieved most of what we originally set out to accomplish back in October 2019.
When I stepped into the role, I didn’t just inherit a roadmap—I inherited a moment. Conversica had ambition, but product management needed transformation. In 2019, we were feature-first, not value-first. Roadmaps were built in slides, not with customer data. The team was reactive, caught between engineering’s constraints and sales’ wishlist.
But I saw potential. We didn’t need a better backlog—we needed a better belief system. A product philosophy rooted in outcomes, not features. One that connected directly to business impact—reducing churn, increasing ARR, and accelerating time-to-value.
We realigned Product Management under a unified CPO role. Swimlanes were defined: Core Platform, Applied AI Use Cases, Integrations, and PLG Infrastructure. We invested in a new discipline: PM Operations. With it came real-time telemetry, user analytics, and customer usage insights that allowed us to pivot features with purpose, not guesswork.
And we made product a revenue engine. NG Chat replaced Chatbot 1.0—less bloated, more scalable, deeply integrated into our customers’ RevOps stacks. Every release began with a metric: Reduce CAC. Increase LTV. Expand usage. Improve NPS. Product wasn’t a cost center—it was a growth flywheel.
One of our most important shifts? Product-led GTM alignment. Use cases like High-Value Use Cases (HVUCs) weren’t built in a vacuum—they were co-designed with CS, refined with PS, and validated with top enterprise accounts. The outcome? Lower churn, bigger expansions, and customers evangelizing our product before we even asked.
We also evolved how we listened. Weekly “real issue” roundtables turned product meetings into battlegrounds for truth. We stopped talking about “what to build” and started confronting “why it matters.” That culture change was everything.
Product Management – Strategic Headwinds (The Losses)
When I first stepped into the role, my interactions with the product leadership were… alarming. I asked simple questions: “How many customer visits have you done this quarter?” Zero. “Can you walk me through a recent enterprise customer success story driven by product?” Nothing.
There were some customer interactions, sure—but always through a reactive lens. Support escalations. Feature clarification. Tactical follow-ups. It was clear: this wasn’t a product-led organization. It was a backlog-led one. The team excelled at managing Agile ceremonies—refining stories, running sprints, delivering increments. But that’s a group of product owners. That’s not product management.
Product Owners manage the process. Product Managers drive the purpose. They immerse in the customer experience, uncover pain points, and translate insights into innovation. Our team wasn’t leading the market—they were processing it.
This gap was especially dangerous in AI, where context is king. You can’t build transformative automation without first understanding the nuance behind customer behavior, workflows, and desired outcomes. For too long, that understanding was missing.
That lack of direct, proactive customer engagement didn’t just slow down innovation—it created a disconnect from value. Features were shipped without clarity on impact. Priorities were set without conviction. Launches lacked narrative. Product was operating in a vacuum.
We had to rewire the mindset. From task executors to market explorers. From backlog managers to business builders.
Advice From One CEO to Another – Building Great Product in AI Enterprises
Start With the Pain, Not the Feature.
If you can’t tie a backlog item to a dollar of ARR or a churn event, kill it. You’re not building a product—you’re decorating it.
Make Product Everyone’s Job.
PMs are not the sole voice of the customer. Create a structure where CS, PS, Sales, and even Legal feed into product discovery—weekly.
Quality Is the Ultimate Feature.
There’s no MVP in enterprise AI. If it breaks in prod, it’s a brand problem. Bake QA into product DNA.
Roadmaps Are Dead. Narratives Live.
You need a product narrative that aligns every initiative with a strategic theme. A roadmap without context is just a list.
Verticalize Early.
AI’s value is exponential when wrapped in domain knowledge. Generic platforms get evaluated; vertical products get deployed.
Conclusion
By mid-2025, Conversica’s Product Management wasn’t just driving features—it was driving belief. From a reactive function buried between Engineering and Sales, Product became a strategic muscle. One that translated market needs into scalable innovation. One that knew when to say “no,” and when to bet bold.
It was never about the backlog. It was about the backbone—of an organization willing to bet on AI, on outcomes, and on customers who deserved more than just software. They deserved success.
We didn’t build a product. We built a movement—one conversation at a time, one use case at a time. In the age of AI, Product isn’t a department. It’s the soul of the company.
