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Mind the Product

Product Management

Sunday Rewind: Metrics don’t have all the answers: a human-centered approach to business strategy by Samihah Azim

An Anthropic report on Claude misuse, Intel restructuring and layoffs: This week’s news round-up

B2B product management

Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Machine Learning (ML)

Building Product Teams

Business Strategy

Data Driven Product Management

Digital Transformation

Diversity and Inclusion

Minimum Viable Product

OKRs

Prioritisation

Product Design

Product Research

Product Development Process

Product Ethics

Product Discovery

Product Leadership

Product Management Career

Product Strategy

Stakeholder Management

🌎 <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/world-product-day/" style="color:#FFFFFF;text-decoration:underline;">Happy World Product Day!</a> Be sure to celebrate product, yourself, and your peers today! 🎉

Why great product managers think like therapists

When your product is not THE product by Emily Tate at #mtpcon London 2025

Spotify invests in non-English audiobooks, new product chief at Trainline: This week’s news round-up

What AI can’t—and shouldn’t—do for product managers

How and when to sunset features – Roni Ben Aharon (CPO, Craft.io, Booking.com, Wix)

Andres is a freelance writer and digital marketer with a background in engineering and a keen interest in the latest technology advancements. He currently helps tech companies and startups tell their stories by turning their complex ideas into easy to understand material. You can reach out to him on LinkedIn

Andres Phillips

<p>How can we <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">do</span> AI? In this <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/producttank-about/">ProductTank</a> London talk, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilysappington/?originalSubdomain=uk">Emily Sappington</a>, Product Director at Babylon Health, tells us how to answer that question by setting proper user expectations and creating minimal viable intelligence. The key points of her talk include:</p>
<ul>
<li>What makes someone or something smart?</li>
<li>The importance of setting expectations</li>
<li>How to handle the AI questions</li>
<li>Principles of minimal viable intelligence</li>
</ul>
<p>Watch the video to see Emily’s talk in full. Or read on for an overview of her key points.</p>
<h2>What makes someone or something smart?</h2>
<p>Emily begins by pointing out that AI is not a box you tick despite what many may think. It’s a tool. When companies think about AI, their minds immediately turn to data science, machine learning, and roles that go into making good products. However, as product managers leading an AI charge, it’s important to remember to bring users along for the ride.</p>
<p>The way to do that is to start by asking. “What makes someone or something smart?”</p>
<p>As Emily explains, humans evaluate intelligence by asking if something responds, if it’s competent and if it’s impressive.</p>
<p>For humans and technology, things aren’t that different. Frontend intelligence is fundamental when building AI as, during the first interaction between humans, it needs to be smooth and crisp. The moment of eye contact or the first impression is also essential for determining competence as users evaluate responsiveness and competence when testing a product.</p>
<h2>The importance of setting expectations</h2>
<p>Product managers should make sure that they don’t set expectations too high when it comes to AI capabilities. Set expectations early and make them clear, but don’t over-promise as users will find ways to test intelligence. Also, before you can try to impress users, you need a strong base.</p>
<h2>How to handle the AI questions</h2>
<p>Emily provides some tips on how to handle the question of “How can we do AI?” For large and small companies, set appropriate expectations and do a few things well, but be mindful that you may need to go above and beyond user expectations at times when claiming intelligence. For startups, she recommends that they get scenario-focused and only personify if it’s helpful.</p>
<h2>Principles of minimal viable intelligence</h2>
<p>Finally, Emily leaves us with some principles of minimal viable intelligence.</p>
<ul>
<li>Do a few things, very well</li>
<li>Don’t expect to be intelligent before you’re smart</li>
<li>Under-promise and over-deliver</li>
<li>Surprise users with intelligence that suits your scenario</li>
</ul>
<h3>Enjoy more from ProductTank</h3>
<p>ProductTanks are informal meetups, created by <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/about/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mind the Product</a>, to bring local product people together and to enable speakers to share amazing product insights. Today we have ProductTanks in more than 200 cities across the globe and there’s probably one near you.</p>
<p>Learn more about <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/producttank-about/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">ProductTank</a> – find your local meetup, explore more ProductTank content, see the latest ProductTank news, and discover ways to get involved!</p>

core/freeform

Product Launch

The magic of making great products with Christian Idiodi

5 key practices to build a better product, Adam Mullett, ProductTank Perth

Keeping product creative, innovative… and fun! by Manon Dave

3 myths that get in the way of product adoption by Martina Lauchengo

Epic alignment by Nils Janse

A designer, a product manager, and an engineer walk into a bar…by Karishma Irani

The importance of a compelling mission and a user-focused strategy by Johannes Mayer

Designing for AI by Emily Sappington

Building Products for Bharat by Arpit Maheshwari and Smriti Pant

Creating and Marketing Cybersecurity Products by Richard Reiner

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