Podcasts about digital experiences

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Shulagna Dasgupta, a fellow podcast host who spent over two decades at Accenture on human capital, talent, and operating models, most recently as vice chair advising CEOs through major transformations. She left this past June to launch her podcast, AI-isms, and to found Ochin, an AI advisory firm helping organizations navigate transformation. Tammy and Shulagna tackle the question so many leaders are sitting with: if your organization went tech-first, automated hard, and treated people as an afterthought, can you actually recover? Shulagna's answer is yes. She argues that for the first time, value and human advantage aren't in opposition. Her prescription for making that pivot: get explicit about intention, replace fear with real psychological safety, and above all, get CXOs hands-on building with AI themselves rather than just prompting it, since that's what shifts how they design programs for everyone else.Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks: Shulagna Dasgupta OchinAI-isms Podcast Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Every product team is shipping AI. But the dirty secret is that, for many companies, very few users are adopting. The feature launches, the people who try it love it, and adoption stalls anyway. Our guest today thinks that's because teams obsess over building AI and barely think about adoption. Charanya Kannan is VP and GM of Navan Anywhere, which puts Navan's AI travel and expense tools inside Slack, Teams, and Gemini, where people already work, instead of asking them to open another app. She joined Navan when the company was still called TripActions and doing under $50 million in revenue... now it's well on its way to a billion. Her take: if customers have to work harder to use your AI, it isn't actually better. In this episode, Charanya shares: How Navan Anywhere was built distribution-first, bringing booking and expenses into the tools people already use every day Why Navan's margins went up in the AI era, while the rest of SaaS braces for compression And why she believes PMs who mostly manage process and Jira tickets will fade away, while those who can actually drive user benefit and business outcomes will matter more than ever Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meetcharanya/ Navan: https://navan.com/ Chapters 00:00 Introduction 04:17 Why AI features don't always get adopted 06:30 Building Navan Anywhere distribution-first 10:13 When to use AI vs. deterministic systems 12:01 Conversational cognitive load and why good UI still matters 15:57 Evals, distilled models, and the AI reliability pyramid 20:14 Product owners vs. product managers in the AI era 26:10 How Navan is growing margins while SaaS faces AI compression 31:40 Conclusion Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Charanya Kannan.

A health system's website isn't simply a place patients visit after choosing where to receive care. It's increasingly part of the decision itself. Recorded live at HMPS, Stewart Gandolf talks with Chris Pace of SearchStax about new consumer research showing how digital experience, site search, and content accuracy can strengthen patient trust or cause patients to walk away altogether.

In this special episode recorded in front of a live audience at Nexus 2025, Tammy is joined by Sean Jantzen, VP of Software Engineering at UPS. Sean brings over 24 years of experience at UPS, where he's risen from intern to leader, helping transform one of the world's largest logistics companies into a digital powerhouse. Tammy and Sean discuss his coaching mindset, AI adoption strategies and the challenges of innovating with legacy systems. Sean also talks about how his background in team sports informs his coaching mindset and explains why shipping early and small can lead to fewer bugs and faster delivery.Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks: Sean JantzenScaling responsible AI: With Noelle RussellOnly the curious will thrive: Top takeaways from Nexus 2025Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Most of the AI products getting hype right now are built for people like us, the tech industry. But your customers don't care how the AI works — they just want their problem solved in a way that's easy for them. Brian McMullin, SVP and Head of Product at Network Solutions, has spent 15 years building for small businesses at companies including HubSpot, ezCater, Wayfair, and SamCart. In that time, he's yet to meet a business owner who wakes up thinking, "I can't wait to use AI today." For many of them, a prompt box might as well be a terminal window. So his team doesn't ship the box. They ship the finished work artifact, and all the user has to do is claim it. In this episode, Brian shares: Why doing the work for small businesses first, instead of handing them an empty prompt box, is what gets them to try AI His warning about baking inference into the core of your product before token pricing settles — and the two models he's testing to find out what small businesses will actually tolerate And what SamCart taught him about churn: customers left because basic things were broken, not because features were missing. Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianemcmullin/ Network Solutions: https://www.networksolutions.com/ Chapters 00:00 Introduction 00:48 Brian's product journey from developer to SMB product leader 02:42 How small businesses went from distrusting AI to have AI FOMO 06:10 SMBs don't wake up excited to use AI, they want to close the deal 08:42 Stop showing the agent, ship the finished work 11:48 Inference costs break the old SaaS margin math 15:00 Testing free credits and tiered usage with small businesses 16:47 What usage-based pricing does to ARR and predictability 22:28 Churn is a pile of micro-annoyances, not one event 25:06 What SamCart's churn data revealed about broken basics 28:55 Conclusion Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Brian McMullin.

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Rita Soni, a social entrepreneur and one of the leading voices on impact sourcing, an intentional, inclusive talent strategy she's helped shape since the term was coined during her time as CEO of Nasscom Foundation. She later brought that expertise to Everest Group as a principal analyst, and is now building Grand Resolve, a nonprofit that's co-creating standards to make digital services more responsible and inclusive. Tammy and Rita dig into what impact sourcing actually looks like on the ground, from Televerde's outbound call centers inside a women's prison to Vindhya Info Media in Bangalore, where a workforce built around people with disabilities has outpaced expectations on retention and quality. The throughline: "good for people" and "good for business" aren't competing goals. Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks: Rita SoniNasscom Foundation Everest Group's Impact SourcingLearn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Every day, more of your traffic isn't human. AI agents show up, grab what they need, and leave — and YOU pay to serve every visitor, whether they see your brand or not. Today's guest has seen this from both sides. Brandon Harris is VP of Product at Pantheon, the WebOps platform behind a huge slice of the WordPress and Drupal world. But before that, he was sending the bots — at Wiser, where his team scraped millions of pages a day to power retail pricing intelligence. His take: agents aren't killing the web. They're just the next way information travels — and the companies that adapt are about to pull way ahead of the ones that don't. In this episode, Brandon shares: How AI is turning the whole web into one giant CMS — and quietly rewriting the job of anyone who publishes content Plus, why visits are the new impressions, why trying to keep agents out is the modern-day version of blocking Google from indexing your site — and what to do instead Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cxoplus/ Pantheon: https://pantheon.io/ Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:02 Brandon's product journey: From film school to Wiser and Pantheon 02:24 The dead web debate: Agents are just the next mode of transport 05:51 Why traffic-based pricing can break when the majority of your visitors are agents 08:15 Site visits are becoming the new impressions 10:46 Grading traffic and the identity arms race it will start 14:11 When the whole web becomes your CMS 16:40 Putting your brand's fingerprints in content that AI will pull without accessing your site 21:23 How people decide to trust a site 26:17 Watching sessions to catch user drift before customers quietly leave 31:09 Conclusion Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Brandon Harris.

Most of my clients come to me with a problem. These can be wide ranging from “we are seeing large churn in our app” to “we cannot get stakeholders to sign off on vital UX work”. They are sometimes expressed as a user need such as “we need to make it easier for users to do X” or as a business need such as “we need to increase the number of users who sign up for our demo”. Or sometimes just a scream of frustration! Whatever the case, the ability to diagnose the root causes of these problems and address them is a core part of my role and, I would argue, the role of anybody who is working in digital.Whether you are a product manager, UX designer, developer, marketer or business owner, the ability to troubleshoot these kinds of challenges is essential to being successful in your role.Fortunately, no matter the trouble that needs ‘shooting', there is an approach you can use to resolve the challenge. Admittedly, it takes practice, experience and nuances that are far beyond what I can cover here. However, hopefully I can at least point you in the right direction.So, let's take a real challenge that I often encounter and work through the process I use to troubleshoot and resolve it.Our example challengeThere are so many possible challenges I could use, but let's pick one I hear all the time from marketing teams. They are running ad campaigns and yet they are seeing low conversion rates. They want me to help them understand why users are not acting and work out how to fix it.Well, whatever the challenge is, the first step is to diagnose the problem.Diagnosing the problemObviously that is easier said than done. But, normally I start by brainstorming a list of possible causes. For example, in this case, I might consider the following:The ads are targeting the wrong audience.The ad copy is not compelling enough.The landing page is not converting.Conversions are not being properly tracked.The post landing page experience is flawed in some way.The list could go on, but you get the idea.Narrow the fieldNext we need to identify which of the possible causes is the most likely to be the primary issue. Of course, it could be a combination of a few, so we need to bear that in mind. Problems are rarely black and white.We can do this with good old fashioned research. We might look at the analytics data, carry out user testing or run a survey. The idea is to find supporting evidence that the problem is real and that it is the right one.Once we are fairly confident that we have the right diagnosis, we need to zoom in on exactly the nature of the problem.Get specific about the problemLet's say for example that the problem turns out to be the landing page experience. Ads are well targeted, but the conversion rate on the landing page is low.Well, what exactly is the problem with the landing page experience? Is it the design, the copy, the call to action or something else?Identifying this might be done through years of experience, research or user testing. However we do it, we need a specific diagnosis before we proceed.Now, at this point, most people will jump into fixing the problem, but that would be a mistake. Before doing that we need to ask, why that problem exists in the first place.Understanding why the problem existsI mean think about it. Is there a marketer on the planet who doesn't know that a campaign will underperform if the landing page experience is poor?It's easy to assume that the cause is incompetence, but that is rarely the case. Often there are underlying issues that have prevented the problem being addressed.For example, the solution might be to have customized landing pages for each campaign. But there are often barriers that prevent this. Barriers like:A lack of design and development capacity.No template that can be used.An overly restrictive template that cannot be customized for a specific campaign.A lack of time to produce multiple landing pages.Technological limitations.Legal or compliance issues.Again, I could go on.**Identifying these blockers is the most important part of troubleshooting. **Giving them a new beautiful landing page will not fix the problem if they cannot use it. Your solution has to be practical within the constraints of the real world or you need to at least be able to make a compelling case for why these barriers have to be addressed.Addressing the barriersThis is where you need to get creative. Ideally you want to circumvent the barriers, rather than try to overcome them. This will prove far more successful and faster to do.For example, it is not going to be easy to get more design and development capacity or replace the tech stack.Circumventing the barriersInstead, you need to look for workarounds that will get people 80% of the way there, even if it is not perfect. In the case of our landing pages, that might be to create a landing page playbook that teaches AI and marketers how to easily create high converting landing pages in minutes. A playbook that takes into account the constraints within which the organization operates.In fact, this is such a common scenario I have a packaged approach to do exactly this. This is so much more effective than some report telling people everything that is wrong or a prototype showing best practice, because they don't address the underlying barriers.Of course, you cannot always circumvent the barriers. Sometimes they need to be overcome.Overcoming the barriersI came across this scenario recently. I recommended to a large charity that they needed customized landing pages for their fundraising campaigns. Unfortunately, their tech stack just didn't allow for it without significant development investment and it just wasn't a priority.My job therefore was to make it a priority. I had to build them a business case that showed this was a job that should be done and done soon.Step one was to gather evidence that the limitations of their tech stack were causing the organization real damage. We did that by running a test campaign with a custom landing page that did not use their tech stack.This was easy enough to spin up with the help of AI, despite still plugging into the existing tech stack for the actual donation.We tracked the number of people entering the donation flow and compared it to the numbers from previous campaigns. The uplift was significant.Despite poor tracking of average donation amounts, and lifetime value of donors, we were able to make some estimates about the financial impact of the improved landing page. Or put another way, we were able to estimate how much the barrier (existing tech stack) was costing the organization for each and every campaign they ran.These figures, alongside our proof of concept test, could be rolled into a business case alongside a small ask that the fundraising team be allowed to create landing pages separately from the existing tech stack, until resources were available to fix the issue.Notice I didn't suggest the whole tech stack should be replaced. Neither did I demand development resources should be allocated immediately. Instead I suggested a small, temporary solution that would allow the organization to recover the money lost to the tech stack.Checking you actually fixed anythingSo, you have a solution that survives contact with the real world. But, that is not the end of the job.Yes, this is the point where everybody wants to move on, and I understand why. The fix has shipped, the pressure is off, and there is always another problem waiting. But, if nobody goes back to look at the numbers, you have no way of knowing whether you diagnosed the problem correctly or simply got lucky. You also throw away the evidence that would have made your next business case much easier to win. So, agree up front what you are going to measure and when you are going to look at it again.In our landing page example that might be the conversion rate per campaign, the point where people abandon the page, or the number of campaign pages the team manages to produce in a month. Pick 1 or 2 numbers, write down where they sit today, and put a date in the diary to revisit them. If the numbers have not moved, you have not solved the problem, you have only relocated it.The questions, in orderIf you take nothing else from this, take the order of the questions.What do we think the problem is?What evidence do we have that it is the real problem?What exactly about it is broken?Why has nobody fixed it already?Can we go around that barrier, or do we have to knock it down?How will we know whether it worked?Yes, most of us can answer question one in our sleep. But, the value sits in questions four and five, and those are the two it is easy to skip on the way to a nice slide deck of recommendations.A slower way of working, and worth itI am not going to pretend this is quicker than firing over a list of improvements. It isn't. It involves awkward conversations about why the obvious fix has been sitting undone for 3 years, and those conversations are rarely fun.But, advice that nobody can act on is just an expensive opinion, and I have written more of those than I care to admit.It is also difficult when you work in-house. There are politics and hierarchies to navigate. That is where getting some outside help can make a difference. They sit outside of those structures and tend to be seen as more impartial.So if you are struggling with a barrier that needs to be circumvented or a problem that you just cannot solve, give me a shout.

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Tanarra Schneider, founder of Rebel 75, for a conversation about building healthier, more human workplace cultures in the age of AI. Tanarra's path here wasn't linear, she led design at Fjord and Accenture, helped shape culture at Activision Blizzard, built one of the first streaming cooking school platforms, and even detoured through culinary school. She traces her drive to push back on broken systems to her mother, who always stood up for other people, and to her own instincts as a risk-taker who has never fit neatly into one box. She and Tammy dig into the sharp difference between a "chaos monster," who knocks things over out of ego, and a true rebel, who acts from a broader sense of "we." That same distinction shapes her read on AI's arrival in the workplace, which she sees as having been inserted squarely in the middle of human relationships, quietly replacing the context and conversation that used to happen between people. She makes the case that organizations need to slow down for the right reasons, not just to cut costs, if they want to rebuild trust, and that service design has become the discipline this moment badly needs. Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks: Tanarra Schneider Rebel75 Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this episode of @The Bell, our guest Patrick McBride takes us inside Taco Bell's digital world, from the app and kiosks to the technology shaping the guest experience.This podcast is sponsored by Taco Bell.

“Product sense” is the thing that nobody can define, but everyone says will keep product managers employed in the age of AI. Our guest today has a definition, with receipts. But he takes it somewhere that's less comfortable than you might assume: if all you do is move numbers, you're obsoleting yourself because AI will eventually do it better than you can. Kevin Sung is VP of Product at Life360, the family safety app with roughly 100 million monthly active users. Before that, he spent years at Dropbox, Smule, Zynga, and Google, a path that took him from a growth-hacking playbook to a very different conclusion about where product management's value actually lives. In this episode, Kevin discusses: What the PM job becomes once engineering isn't a bottleneck, and why the line between lazy product management and good product craft is the strength of your opinion How he got Dropbox leadership to fund a year of unglamorous quality work that no financial model could justify, and how it produced $24 million in ARR from churn reduction And what this all means now at Life360 — where the question in a product review isn't “how's this move the number”, it's “does this create a moment of worry for a parent?” Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinsung/ Life360: https://www.life360.com/ Chapters 00:00 Introduction 04:06 Defining "product sense" 07:45 How the PM role is evolving 10:20 Kevin's growth lessons from Smule 14:22 The $24M retention bet 18:29 Resentment builds until users snap 22:38 Selling a bet you can't model 24:36 Enshittification and paper cuts 27:51 Life360, where trust is the product 32:23 Conclusion Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Kevin Sung.

Jim Rucinski, Solution Engineer at the International Fresh Produce Association, runs IFPA's entire digital experience with a team of two — personalization, content management, and platform support included.He joins Greg Kihlström at Opticon to walk through what a constraint that tight actually forces you to decide.A two-person team changes the question from what to build to what to refuse. Ruckinski on the test he applies when a request lands, and how much of the week is already claimed by maintenance before anything new gets considered.Handing content tools to non-technical colleagues means handing out the ability to break consistency. What had to be standardized inside Optimizely's CMS and Content Marketing Platform before the organization could self-serve without the experience coming apart."AI" covers both a faster draft and a system that executes on its own — and a lean team can only absorb one of them. How Rucinski separates technology that removes work from technology that adds something new to supervise.About Jim RucinskiJim Rucinski is the Solutions Engineer at the International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA), where he oversees the evolution of the organization's enterprise digital ecosystem. A self-taught programmer with more than 30 years of software engineering experience, Jim specializes in turning operational friction into automated, reusable capabilities. Partnering with solution provider Perficient, he focuses on leveraging modern CMS architecture, GraphQL, and practical AI tools to run a global digital presence efficiently.Jim Rucinski on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-rucinski-925004258/---------- Resources ---------- : https://www.freshproduce.com/The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fChaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716baCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.comThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jim Rucinski, Solution Engineer at the International Fresh Produce Association, runs IFPA's entire digital experience with a team of two — personalization, content management, and platform support included.He joins Greg Kihlström at Opticon to walk through what a constraint that tight actually forces you to decide.A two-person team changes the question from what to build to what to refuse. Ruckinski on the test he applies when a request lands, and how much of the week is already claimed by maintenance before anything new gets considered.Handing content tools to non-technical colleagues means handing out the ability to break consistency. What had to be standardized inside Optimizely's CMS and Content Marketing Platform before the organization could self-serve without the experience coming apart."AI" covers both a faster draft and a system that executes on its own — and a lean team can only absorb one of them. How Rucinski separates technology that removes work from technology that adds something new to supervise.About Jim RucinskiJim Rucinski is the Solutions Engineer at the International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA), where he oversees the evolution of the organization's enterprise digital ecosystem. A self-taught programmer with more than 30 years of software engineering experience, Jim specializes in turning operational friction into automated, reusable capabilities. Partnering with solution provider Perficient, he focuses on leveraging modern CMS architecture, GraphQL, and practical AI tools to run a global digital presence efficiently.Jim Rucinski on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-rucinski-925004258/---------- Resources ---------- : https://www.freshproduce.com/The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658Reach your customers with Reddit. Spend $500 in ad spend, get $500 back in ad credit! Learn more: https://advertalize.com/r/491818c79fb1873fChaser is the only Slack-native project management platform that helps teams turn messages into tracked tasks, automate follow-ups, and maintain team-wide visibility, without adopting another tool. Now integrated with Claude and other GenAI tools. Learn more at trychaser.com and use code AGILEBRAND for a 3-month free trial (normal trial is 14 days).The most influential minds in software, AI, and engineering leadership will be at WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America, September 23-25 in San Jose. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/60a7299222a7bcf1Start building your own apps with Replit and get $20 off. Learn more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/93531742a7625a20Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716baCheck out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.comThe Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by not just any executive coach — she's welcoming her very own executive coach onto the podcast. Anna Pool is an executive coach, author, and President of Executive Savvy, and has been working with Tammy for years. Anna shares her non-traditional background: 20 years living and working in an ashram, where she devoted her life to yoga, meditation, and enlightenment. She explains how this experience informs her practical approach to presence, nervous system regulation, and resilient leadership. She and Tammy also discuss why so many leaders are stuck in chronic stress today. Anna introduces the concept of the red, green, and blue zones, and teaches simple ways to return to the green zone before reactive decisions take over.Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks: Anna Pool Daniel Goleman - Emotional Intelligence A ten-minute meditation on reconnecting with the Green Zone led by Anna Anna's latest Linked In article on the Red ZoneLet Go - Sanskrit/English chanting written and produced by AnnaLearn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

At dating app The League, Kunal Thadani's team found that when daily matches took longer to load, people stopped skimming profiles and started actually reading. The wait wasn't a cost — it was the product saying these matches are worth your time. Now he's Senior Director of Product at Houzz, a platform for homeowners to plan renovations, and his take is that the goal was never no friction. It's to create the right kind of friction. In this episode, Kunal drops his: His three-part framework for productive friction, and The two ways friction turns toxic, including the one that punishes your most loyal customers Plus, everyone is building AI workflows for themselves right now. Almost nobody is building them for a team, and Kunal has the clearest answer I've heard in a long time for what that looks like. Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kunal-thadani-72a13722/ Insider Growth Group: https://www.insidergrowthhq.com/ Houzz: https://www.houzz.com/ 0:00 Introduction 0:28 From The League to Houzz: Finding the DIY Decorating Gap 2:03 Not All Friction Is Bad 4:39 Trust Signals, Progress Arcs, Commitment Moments 6:41 The Signup Test That 10X'd Email Conversions 10:25 Two Ways Friction Fails: Fake Protection and Endless Re-Verification 15:16 Why Personal AI Setups Break Down at Team Scale 16:47 Inside the Team OS: One Repo and a Shared Product Context Layer 20:38 Claude Code in the Terminal: Mining Gong Calls and Killing Handoff Tax 24:41 Feedback Loops: Why a Team OS Improves Faster Than a Personal One 25:58 Conclusion Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Kunal Thadani.

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Tucker Burhans, Data Engineering Supervisor at Corning and a finalist for the Next Generation Leadership Award at the Manufacturing Leadership Council Awards Gala. Tucker traces his journey from competitive swimming and pre-med to data engineering, with a love of problem-solving serving as a common thread throughout. He shares his leadership philosophy in an era of rapid technological change and AI: success means championing others and helping them succeed. Having entered the workforce just as AI was beginning to take hold, Tucker offers a unique perspective on both the challenges and opportunities it presents. He discusses the importance of critical thinking and domain expertise when implementing AI, as well as the need to balance new technologies with human judgment. Tucker also shares his personal AI story and how he's using it to support his newfound passion for gardening. Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks: Tucker Burhans Corning Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On a Friday, one of Miro's architects set his agents loose on the company's AI engine. Nobody asked him to. By Monday, he demoed a full refactor. Tuesday, it had a kickoff, and a few months later it was the headline of their user conference. Here's the twist. Miro has refused to rebuild its process around AI. They've kept the same three milestones they've always had...they just changed what happens around them. Our guest today is Jeff Chow, Miro's Chief Product & Technology Officer. He helps lead a company whose entire job is helping cross-functional teams work better together, which makes it an unusually good place to watch what AI is actually doing to how teams build. Jeff's take: AI hasn't moved the milestones — It's rewritten everything that happens between them. In this episode, he shares: The false confidence trap of building alongside an agent that tells you every idea is brilliant, and why that makes the moments where humans actually align more important than ever Why product "process barnacles" accrete on companies as they scale, and how that quietly turns a culture of invention to optimization at just the wrong time And why saying no is the next organizational crisis. Now that anyone can build almost anything, it's become clear that coding was never the hard part Links Jeff's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jjchow/ Miro: https://miro.com/ Chapters 0:00 Introduction 2:20 Why Miro refused to rebuild its process around AI 5:20 What shows up at kickoffs and solutions reviews now 12:15 The false confidence trap: Say no to "yes-man" agents 14:30 From optimization culture to invention culture 18:20 How one IC's side project reshaped Miro's AI engine 22:30 Process barnacles and why saying no is the next crisis 27:30 Conclusion Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Jeff Chow.

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Adam Zaouague, Automation & Data Specialist at Reata Engineering & Machine Works and a finalist for the Next Generation Leadership Award at the Manufacturing Leadership Council Awards Gala. Adam traces his path from a high school CNC machining program to being recruited by Reata's owner (at the age of 17!) and eventually leading the company's engineering department. He reflects on why trust and emotional intelligence matter as much as technical skill when leading others, then turns to AI, arguing that as machines take on more of the workload, intention and focus become the real differentiators. He shares Reata's philosophy of slowing down to speed up, the internal AI tool the company is building to let subject matter experts create their own solutions, and how integrity and teamwork remain the values that hold it all together. Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks:Adam Zaouague Great CEOs are Lazy Tomo Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We've got something different today: a live demo and walkthrough of how an actual product leader built a real, PM-focused tool with AI. Our guest today put her proverbial money where her mouth is when she got sick of the AI hype and anxiety and grew tired of writing the same status update five different ways for five different audiences. So she decided to build her way out of the never-ending loop of draft, then repackage again and again and again. And today, she's going to demo it for us and show how she and a team of collaborators built an entire AI PM operating system to help with the myriad of similar, repetitive tasks that product leaders face! Parul Goel has spent nearly 20 years in product, including almost nine at PayPal building a zero-to-one payments platform for marketplaces, and her recent stint as Senior Director of Product at Indeed.com, leading the payments and billing platform through a major scaling challenge. In this episode, Parul shows: A live demo of the PM operating system she built with 3 fellow product leaders and the four-layered architecture behind it Why the "context library" and codifying company identity, stakeholders, and voice is the layer most people skip, BUT the one that matters most And how the system handles core PM workflows like exec updates, cross-functional communication, customer interview synthesis, and PRD drafts Links Parul's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pg2121/ PM OS GitHub project: https://github.com/goelparul-cyber/AI-PM-OS Parul's collaborators: Vidya Sarangapan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vsara/ Priyank C.: https://www.linkedin.com/in/priyankachaturvedimit/ Bhagyashree Prabhakar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhagya-prabhakar/ Chapters 00:00 Introcution 02:58 The inspiration behind Parul's PM OS tool 07:26 Live Demo: Exec update (Video version on YouTube!) 12:54 Other PM OS skills 13:55 Why building the context library is the most important part of the process 20:48 The future of PM with AI 21:57 Conclusion Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Parul Goel.

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by NTT Data's Chief Strategy Officer Roli Agrawal for a conversation about implementing technology that works for everyone. Roli shares about her upbringing in India and how the privileges and discriminations she experienced made her passionate about fighting inequities. Roli shares her perspective on how bias creeps into AI systems, and what leaders can do to catch it early. They discuss what a responsible AI framework — trusted, ethical, secure, fair, and sustainable — looks like in practice, and why building datasets that reflect society is both a moral and a business imperative. Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks: Roli Agrawal Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Everyone loves to romanticize the founder who starts from zero. But most successful product and digital leaders will likely find themselves using a slightly different flavor of that skill: intrapreneurship — building something new inside an established company...whether it be a business unit, go-to-market approach, product, or other. Gaurav Jaiswal has done exactly this several times. At SAP, he co-founded SAP Digital, a B2B2C business built to let anyone in the world discover, try, and buy SAP products — taking it from zero to $180 million in just a couple of years. Most recently, as VP of Digital Product at Pearson, he did it again, launching a subscription e-textbook product from idea to market in six months, and scaling to $65 million in just about 2 years. In this episode, Gaurav shares: How he got SAP's board to approve an entirely new business unit in just six months, and the framework he used to get market traction just as quickly How he took those lessons to Pearson, a 150-year-old publishing company, and helped turn it into one that runs like a software business And why building inside a public company is a trade — you get the brand and customer base built in, but you're on the hook for the full legacy culture and scrutiny that comes from operating in a larger, established company Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gauravjaiswal/ Chapters 00:00 Introduction 02:30 Gaurav's digital product origin story 05:43 Scaling to 180M ARR 06:52 Gaurav's four P's framework 14:54 Launching Pearson+ and scaling 19:46 The importance of intraprenuership 23:31 Conclusion Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Gaurav Jaiswal.

Send us Fan MailSince joining TGI Fridays in January 2025 as Director of Global Marketing, Christopher Houston has made it one of his priorities to ensure that the company's digital platforms serve as a conduit for the brand, rather than a barrier. Houston is focused on innovating to create a digital guest journey that is streamlined not just for TGI Fridays' current guests, but also the next digital-first generation. This means making sure all the digital touch points reflect the energy that the restaurant's guests feel when they visit Fridays, according to Houston.Stay connected with Loyalty360! Follow us on LinkedIn and X for the latest loyalty insights, industry news, and upcoming events.https://www.linkedin.com/company/loyalty-360https://x.com/Loyalty360https://www.youtube.com/@Loyalty360_

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Craig Vaughan, Executive Managing Director and Global Head of AI Go-to-Market at NTT DATA, three months into the role. Craig traces his path from studying architecture at Cornell through an MBA at Wharton and a master's in business analytics from NYU Stern, then through go-to-market roles at SAP and a decade leading AI and gen AI practices at Accenture. He and Tammy dig into how leading diverse, cross-functional teams and moving at AI's breakneck pace aren't in tension but actually reinforce each other. They also discuss what drew Craig to NTT DATA's culture, the partnerships with OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Mistral that are shaping how the company delivers for clients, and how to keep AI adoption human-centric so workers are repurposed rather than replaced.Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks: Craig Vaughan Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

To most people, DoorDash is an easy fix when you just need food. Our guest today would argue that's the least interesting thing they do. Vassili Samolis has been VP of Product at DoorDash for 5 years and counting, leveraging lessons from Instagram & Pinterest to help turn a simple food delivery app into a high-trust local commerce platform for the more than one million merchants who use it to help drive their businesses. In this episode, Vassili shares: How DoorDash built a successful local commerce platform based on extreme alignment - they only get paid when a business gets a customer and a consumer finds the food that they want Why he thinks there's never been a better time to be a PM - not in spite of code getting cheaper but because of it And how a crowded field of a million restaurants, bodegas, and local shops taught him that the best products often start with a single, very specific customer story Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vassilisamolis/ DoorDash: https://www.doordash.com/ Chapters 00:00: Introducing Vassili and DoorDash's mission to empower local businesses 02:29 Why local restaurants struggle to survive and grow 04:27: TL;DR into Vassili's product background: From Instagram and Pinterest to DoorDash 05:39: Turning a delivery app into a full local commerce platform 07:23: Product lessons and first principles thinking 12:00: The most unexpected customer insight Vassili and his team discovered 14:10: AI and the future of product teams 17:52: What AI deployment looks like on Vassili's team 18:50: Conclusion Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Vassili Samolis.

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Kevin Thimjon, President of the Arrow McLaren IndyCar Team, who oversees the business side of one of the sport's most storied organizations, from finance and commercial strategy to administration. Kevin traces his path from public accounting through a series of private equity-backed CFO roles and into the CEO seat, describing each stop as a new tool added to his belt for better leadership. He and Tammy dig into what it takes to lead a team through a high-profile driver lineup change while staying focused on finishing the current season strong, the constant tension between running a profitable operation and chasing wins on the track, and the philosophy behind Arrow McLaren's partnership approach, where the goal isn't landing new sponsors but making every partner feel like the standard everyone else should be measured against. By the end of the conversation you'll be searching for McLaren's papaya orange merch!Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks:Kevin Thimjon Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In a crowded market, copying products has become effortless. Herman Scheer cofounder John Scheer explains why building a strong, clear brand is an entrepreneur's last line of defense. By rooting messaging in human truth and optimizing copy for AI search tools, he reveals how modern businesses can carve out lasting market moats that drive long-term value. For more on Herman Scheer, in show notes, click here. Subscribe and watch Shopify Masters on YouTube!Sign up for your FREE Shopify Trial here.

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Beth Howen, President of State, Local Government and Education (SLED) at NTT DATA, who helps government agencies and school systems modernize the technology touching everyday life. Beth traces her path from becoming a state CIO in Indiana at 28 through leadership roles at Capgemini, TELUS International, Atos, and the City of Indianapolis. So how did she do so much at such a young age? Beth credits it to a willingness to work outside rigid processes when they don't serve the outcome. She and Tammy dig into how AI risks compounding government's legacy-system problems if agencies automate broken workflows instead of modernizing first, and the promise of AI-powered care reaching rural and underserved communities.Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks: Beth Howen Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Emma Boyd, a recent Chapman University graduate stepping into her first job as a practice analyst at a San Francisco law firm just as her generation navigates entering the workforce in the age of AI. Emma and Tammy discuss how she's learning to use AI as a tool for condensing and outlining her work, without letting it take over the writing and critical thinking she loves. They also dig into her capstone project at Fabletics, where she researched the legal and ethical questions around AI-generated models in fashion marketing, uncovering a constant cycle of new technology outpacing legal standards almost as soon as they catch up. Emma also has some advice for senior leaders: don't underestimate Gen Z, who are more gritty and driven than older generations often assume.Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks: Emma Boyd - LinkedInLearn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode from the archives, Tammy is joined by Nimesh Mehta. Nimesh is the Chief Information and Strategy Officer at National Life Group and is passionate about creating human experiences with AI — music to our ears! Tammy and Nimesh discuss how to implement digital transformations with empathy and purpose. Nimesh also shares his thoughts on why psychological safety is so important at organizations working at the forefront of technological change, because disruption can't happen in the presence of fear.Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATA.Links:The Trusted Advisor Learn more about Launch by NTT DATAThis podcast is presented by Catalyst, the opinions and views expressed are those of the host and participants and do not necessarily reflect National Life Group's views on the topics discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not to be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy a security in any state where such offer or solicitation would be illegal. Any unauthorized use is prohibited. National Life Group is a trade name of National Life Insurance Company (NLIC), Montpelier, VT and its affiliates. This podcast was recorded on 2/21/2025. TC7784363(0325)3See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We've all been witness to how AI collapses the org chart: leaders are back to doing IC work, ICs are shedding the busy work, and teams are shipping features in two-week sprints that used to take a year. Our guest today is Eric Anderson, SVP of Product at Datasite, the virtual data room platform where billion-dollar M&A deals get done. He walks us through how a real-life, AI-first team has made progress in adoption and the difficulties along the way. In this episode, Eric shares: How the contract has changed as the PM role has evolved. It's not a layoff story - but product has collapsed back to subject-matter expertise, judgment, and taste Inside their “iteration zero” process: where PRDs are written live in the meeting, prototypes are wired to real data, and what the new bottleneck is now that building is fast Plus how you build trust in your AI product when a billion dollars is on the line: citations for everything, correlation, not imperative statements, and why nobody lets the computer decide Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-anderson-pr0ductexec/ Datasite: https://www.datasite.com/ Chapters 00:00 Introduction 03:04 AI is flattening the org chart (and why that's a good thing) 07:32 "The contract has changed": PRDs written live, ideas to code in minutes 14:42 Rise of the hyper creator: Blurring roles on the product team 17:53 Shipping fast isn't enough: Why taste and focus are the new bottleneck 21:35 Inside the virtual data room (VDR) 26:52 How Datasite builds trust in AI insights 31:59 Wrapping up Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Eric Anderson.

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Shelly Swanback, a transformation executive who spent her career helping global organizations navigate digital disruption and large-scale cultural change. Before retiring, Shelly co-founded and helped build Accenture Digital, then went on to lead Western Union and TTEC through major transformations, and she recently published a chapter in The AI Edge: How to Thrive Within Civilization's Next Big Disruption. Shelly and Tammy discuss what leaders need to be communicating right now, and why in this moment of disruption, messaging matters as much as the vision itself. They also dig into why so-called soft skills, curiosity and emotional intelligence are, in fact, hard business requirements at a time when employees are anxious about what AI means for their jobs and their futures. As Shelly puts it, leadership isn't about having all the answers, it's about building teams that can thrive within the questions. Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks: Shelly Swanback The AI Edge: How to Thrive Within Civilization's Next Big DisruptionLearn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Cal Thompson, designer, product advisor, artist and mindfulness teacher with over 15 years of experience in human-centered design. Cal most recently served as VP of Product Design and Research at Headspace, where they led both a design team and a scientific research team through the company's expansion from a meditation app into a full mental health platform. Cal explains how growing up gay in the south impacted how they see design and makes a strong business case for incorporating accessibility into all products and designs. They also explore why the design toolkit is more critical in the AI era than ever before, and why vibe coding without domain expertise risks producing what Cal calls "feature slop." They also dig into the attention economy and how mindfulness is quietly becoming a radical act in a world engineered to capture your focus.Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks: Cal Thompson Headspace Future London Academy Center for Humane TechnologyGreenway Institute Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We've all been witness to how AI collapses the org chart: leaders are back to doing IC work, ICs are shedding the busy work, and teams are shipping features in two-week sprints that used to take a year. Our guest today is Eric Anderson, SVP of Product at Datasite, the virtual data room platform where billion-dollar M&A deals get done. He walks us through how a real-life, AI-first team has made progress in adoption and the difficulties along the way. In this episode, Eric shares: How the "The contract has changed" as the PM role has evolved. It's not a layoff story - but product has collapsed back to subject-matter expertise, judgment, and taste Inside their “iteration zero” process: where PRDs are written live in the meeting, prototypes are wired to real data, and what the new bottleneck is now that building is fast Plus how you build trust in your AI product when a billion dollars is on the line: citations for everything, correlation, not imperative statements, and why nobody lets the computer decide Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nishaat-vasi/ Zipcar: https://www.zipcar.com/ Resources The Right Kind of Wrong by Amy Edmondson: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Right-Kind-of-Wrong/Amy-C-Edmondson/9781982195069 Chapters 00:00 Intro 03:37 Zipcar and the customer experience wake-up call 05:27 Ditching the email survey for real-time feedback 09:55 Turning NPS into OKRs 13:13 The top 3 priorities: Cleanliness, damage, and maintenance 16:51 The zero-cost pilot that now saves millions of dollars 25:42 The issue with "AI theater" 27:43 How genAI spotted a hidden fuel card problem 32:13 Conclusion Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Nishaat Vasi.

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Carolyn Lee, President of The Manufacturing Institute, the workforce development and education affiliate of the National Association of Manufacturers. Carolyn grew up in a manufacturing family on Long Island and spent years on Capitol Hill before taking the helm of the MI in 2017. Tammy and Carolyn dig into the widening gap between AI adoption at the executive level and awareness on the shop floor, and why closing it is the defining challenge for American manufacturing right now. They also unpack the fear factor driving resistance to change and Carolyn announces the forthcoming AI for Manufacturing 101 curriculum to help manufacturers who are at risk of falling behind. Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks:Carolyn LeeThe Manufacturing Institute - AI Skills Training Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our guest today is Laura Burkhauser, CEO of Descript, the video editor that's been AI-native long before “AI-native” was something you put in a pitch deck. Laura's route to the CEO seat started as a customer. She loved the product enough to knock on founder Andrew Mason's door and ask to work on it. She joined to lead product, but only three years later she's succeeded the well-known founder and is running the company. Today, Laura is here to talk about both sides of that journey: finding peers and mentors when you're suddenly the most senior person in any room, and driving AI adoption across an org already known for AI in its product. In this episode, Laura shares: Her "tech acceptance framework" — the 4 stages from outright hostility to "rewired" — and how to figure out where YOUR team actually sits Why telling IC PMs that AI means 2x productivity just sounds like they're doing twice the work — and her “find the dream” reframe that actually gets real buy-in How Laura built Descript's AI philosophy around one principle: "Struggle with your art, not with your tools" and why she doesn't want anyone one-shotting their videos Plus the trap most companies are falling into right now: AI systems that walk out the door when the person who built them leaves, and how to make progress durable across your org Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/burkhauser/ Descript: https://www.descript.com/ Resources What Got You Here Won't Get You There: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/what-got-you-here-wont-get-you-there-marshall-goldsmith/1112274786 Chapters 00:00 Intro 01:07: Laura's career journey: From fashion startups to finding her path to product 03:26: The "what got you here won't get you there" moment 4:05: Finding peers and mentors when you're the most senior person in the room 12:06: "Struggle with your art, not with your tools" — Descript's AI philosophy 15:04: AI as a derivative technology and the democratization of creativity 17:59: The tech acceptance framework: From hostile to rewired 18:50: Running AI hackathons and reimagining company systems 22:40: Pitfalls of AI adoption: Cost, durability, and automating broken systems 24:42: The two-by-two framework for getting your team AI-pilled 27:49: Conclusion Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a YouTube page! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com.Special Guest: Laura Burkhauser.

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Sezin Palmer, AI Solutions Leader at NTT DATA in North America. Sezin traces her impressive and unconventional journey from CIA analyst and Navy submarine warfare programs to building the National Health Mission area at Johns Hopkins' Applied Physics Lab from scratch, then leading health AI and data at EY. Tammy and Sezin dig into the democratization of AI and what it means that capabilities once locked behind years of data science training are now accessible to nearly anyone. They also discuss the thorny challenge of how organizations decide what not to build and why the hardest leadership problem right now isn't launching AI, it's knowing when to stop. Sezin also shares her vision for what has her most excited: the convergence of software, robotics, and biology. Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks: Sezin Palmer Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

AI Won't Kill Websites or Email; It Will Transform ThemIn this clip, Adam Harmetz, VP of Product Management at Microsoft, shares a balanced perspective on AI's impact on digital experiences

Most healthcare digital experiences are designed for a patient who doesn't exist and a promise they can't deliver. Lauren DeGeorge, chief client officer at Huge, joins MM+M reporter Bella Czajkowski to discuss what patients actually expect from digital health — and why the gap between expectation and reality keeps growing. From AI-powered patient journey simulation to the lessons consumer digital experience holds for health systems, DeGeorge makes the case that the industry's next leap is building for the patients in front of you, not the ones in your personas deck. Check us out at: mmm-online.com   Follow us:  YouTube: @MMM-online TikTok: @MMMnews Instagram: @MMMnewsonline Twitter/X: @MMMnews LinkedIn: MM+M   To read more of the most timely, balanced and original reporting in medical marketing, subscribe here. Music: “Deep Reflection” by DP and Triple Scoop Music. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ben Larsen has spent nine years inside a company that built its reputation on something increasingly rare in insurance: actually caring. Wellfleet Insurance — a Berkshire Hathaway company — has answered the phone for college students navigating health insurance for the first time for over three decades, and that white-glove service culture is baked into everything. Now, as Digital Experience Officer, Larsen is the one tasked with figuring out how to take that same care and push it through a screen. In this conversation, Larsen walks Dom Nicastro through the real shape of digital transformation inside a multi-line insurance business — the legacy infrastructure hiding below the surface, the student health advisory council that tells him exactly what Gen Z actually wants, the small and large bets he's placing on bot technology and agentic AI, and why none of it works without getting the data right first. Oh, and there's a Salem State College baseball reunion in here too. You've been warned.

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Abhijit Sunil, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research, where he leads flagship research programs on IT sustainability, sustainability management, and climate risk. Abhijit traces his remarkable journey from designing robotics labs at IIT Bombay to consulting at Ericsson and McKinsey, before landing at Forrester where a flood of client questions about data center efficiency set him on the path to sustainability research. He shares how volunteering as a teacher in Mumbai's slums profoundly shaped his worldview—giving him a lens for seeing optimization and sustainability as deeply human issues, not just technical ones. Tammy and Abhijit also dig into the double-edged nature of AI, from its staggering energy demands to its extraordinary potential to democratize access, and why the answer to almost every big question in sustainability lives somewhere in the Goldilocks zone between extremes.Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATA.Links: Abhijit Sunil Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, Andy sits down with Karl-Fritz Scheufele, Chief of Staff – Craft, Digital & Experience at Chopard and a third-generation member of the family that manages this historic brand.

This week, Tammy welcomes Will Townsend to the Catalyst podcast booth, recording live from NTT Research's Upgrade event in Silicon Valley. Will is the Chief Analyst at LoneStar Advisory and Research, an independent firm he launched after nearly a decade at Moor Insights & Strategy. In this conversation, Will shares where he's seeing AI create genuine, measurable impact beyond the pilot stage. Will also makes the case for post-quantum readiness as the next critical frontier and gives a candid look at his own hands-on science experiment with an OpenClaw mini PC — because, as he puts it, there's no substitute for getting your hands dirty.Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATA.Links: LoneStar Advisory and Research Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Catalyst, Caleb Knight joins Tammy in the Catalyst podcast booth, recording live from NTT Research's Upgrade event. Caleb is the Director Of AI TechX, Industry Partnerships and Economic Development at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Together they explore the reality of AI in the workforce; reframing the conversation around job displacement into job creation and opportunities.They dive into how the University of Tennessee is working with a variety of industry partners to empower the next generation entering the workforce, how this translates across industries and fields, and how being a lifelong learner is the way forward! Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks: Caleb Knight AI TECHX Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The conversation continues! In the conclusion of our special two-part coverage from eTail Toronto 2026, host Jeremy Goldman sits down with four more industry experts to explore the shifting dynamics of modern retail and what it takes to stay ahead in an increasingly automated landscape. Featured in this episode: - Janet Ihm (Vice President, Channel Strategy & Digital Experience, Ontario Cannabis Store): Using retail data programs to level the playing field for mom and pop shops and the importance of intentional, cautious AI strategy. - Thomas Hamilton (VP of Sales & Marketing): Why he's teaching his team philosophy and critical thinking to act as tastemakers who audit the machine. - Mario Lemieux (Partner, DAC): The collapse of the traditional marketing funnel and the rebirth of the physical store as a billboard for the brand. - Roger Emeka (Director of Customer Experience, Browns Shoes Inc.): Why Customer Experience is a profit center and the immediate fallback rule that keeps humans at the center of the journey. Listen now to hear the full conclusion of our eTail Toronto series!

This week, Tammy welcomes Bob Pick to the Catalyst podcast booth, recording live from NTT Research's Upgrade event. Bob is the EVP & CIO at Tokio Marine North America, a multinational insurance holding company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. In their conversation, Bob shares how his nontraditional background in the humanities—including research on the history of swimming pool design—has shaped his approach to working in technology. He and Tammy also discuss the advantages of working at a Japanese company, notably the philosophy of sustainability and encouraging personal development. Bob also shares examples of where he's been bullish on adopting AI, while cautioning against rushing headfirst into disruption. He argues that the most successful companies will be those that take a moment to determine how new technology like AI can meaningfully improve how they work. Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks: Bob Pick Tokio Marine North America Services Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is recording live from Upgrade - NTT Research's annual event that brings together the latest in research and innovation from NTT groups around the world. In this episode, Tammy is joined by Kathleen Zaski, Vice President of IT, Clinical Innovation and Technology Leader at Renown Health where she oversees the technology shaping how patients are cared for and how clinicians work. Together they dive into Kathleen's journey from nursing in the Cardiac ICU to executive IT leadership, how her clinical background informs every technology decision she makes, and what it truly takes to implement and deploy AI in a way that benefits both the patient and clinician experience.Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks: Upgrade 2026 Kathleen Zaski Renown Health Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Bob Rosen, Chief Information Officer at Arcosa. Bob discusses his career journey, including his early experience in the Air Force working with electronics and even designing tech for F-14 fighter jets! He shares how those formative roles shaped the leadership principles he carries today—most notably, that the best idea wins and that bad news doesn't improve with age. Bob and Tammy also explore the role of healthy skepticism in today's rapidly evolving AI landscape, and the importance of thinking strategically about where—and whether—AI can truly drive business results.Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATALinks: Bob Rosen Arcosa Inc. Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the rush to implement AI across the customer experience, are we at risk of creating more digital barriers than we're breaking down? Agility requires a holistic view of the entire digital experience. It's the ability to see not just how individual channels are performing, but how they work together to serve every potential customer, inclusively and intelligently. Today, we're going to talk about what it takes to build that holistic view. We'll explore how brands can unify their performance analytics to move beyond traditional SEO, the dual role of AI in both creating personalized content and ensuring it's accessible, and why inclusivity is becoming one of the most powerful levers for brand growth. To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Nayaki Nayyar, CEO at Siteimprove. About Nayaki Nayyar Nayaki Nayyar is an accomplished technology executive with a proven track record of driving growth, innovation, and market leadership in enterprise SaaS for over 25 years. As the CEO of Siteimprove, she spearheads the company's vision and strategy, accelerating its market leadership in Agentic Content Intelligence powered by Siteimprove.ai platform. In her prior role as the CEO of Securonix, she guided the company's strategic shift into AI with the launch of Securonix EON, an AI-powered cyber-security platform. Under her leadership, Securonix secured its position in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for SIEM for five consecutive years, driving significant growth and product innovation to address evolving global cybersecurity threats.Nayaki brings deep expertise in scaling businesses organically and through strategic acquisitions. As President and Chief Product Officer at Ivanti, she established the company's cybersecurity and endpoint management strategy, growing revenue from $500M to $1.2B and doubling the total addressable market from $30B to $60B in just two years. She also played a pivotal role in launching the Ivanti Neurons Platform and driving expansion through acquisitions. As BMC Software's President of Digital Service and Operations Management, Nayaki led its transformation into AI-driven enterprise solutions with the BMC Helix suite, a strategic evolution that contributed to BMC's $8.2B exit in 2018.Nayaki serves on the boards of TD Synnex and Corteva Agriscience and is a graduate of the Stanford Executive Program. She holds a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Osmania University and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Houston. Recognized among the "Top Women in Technology in the U.S." by Technology Magazine in 2022, she is a respected leader shaping the future of enterprise technology in the AI era. Nayaki Nayyar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nayakinayyar/ Resources Siteimprove: https://www.siteimprove.com/ The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703 Drive your customers to new horizons at the premier retail event of the year for Retail and Brand marketers. Learn more at CRMC 2026, June 1-3. https://aglbrnd.co/r/d15ec37a537c0d74 We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658 Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3 Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company

In the rush to implement AI across the customer experience, are we at risk of creating more digital barriers than we're breaking down?Agility requires a holistic view of the entire digital experience. It's the ability to see not just how individual channels are performing, but how they work together to serve every potential customer, inclusively and intelligently.Today, we're going to talk about what it takes to build that holistic view. We'll explore how brands can unify their performance analytics to move beyond traditional SEO, the dual role of AI in both creating personalized content and ensuring it's accessible, and why inclusivity is becoming one of the most powerful levers for brand growth.To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Nayaki Nayyar, CEO at Siteimprove. About Nayaki Nayyar Nayaki Nayyar is an accomplished technology executive with a proven track record of driving growth, innovation, and market leadership in enterprise SaaS for over 25 years. As the CEO of Siteimprove, she spearheads the company's vision and strategy, accelerating its market leadership in Agentic Content Intelligence powered by Siteimprove.ai platform. In her prior role as the CEO of Securonix, she guided the company's strategic shift into AI with the launch of Securonix EON, an AI-powered cyber-security platform. Under her leadership, Securonix secured its position in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for SIEM for five consecutive years, driving significant growth and product innovation to address evolving global cybersecurity threats.Nayaki brings deep expertise in scaling businesses organically and through strategic acquisitions. As President and Chief Product Officer at Ivanti, she established the company's cybersecurity and endpoint management strategy, growing revenue from $500M to $1.2B and doubling the total addressable market from $30B to $60B in just two years. She also played a pivotal role in launching the Ivanti Neurons Platform and driving expansion through acquisitions. As BMC Software's President of Digital Service and Operations Management, Nayaki led its transformation into AI-driven enterprise solutions with the BMC Helix suite, a strategic evolution that contributed to BMC's $8.2B exit in 2018.Nayaki serves on the boards of TD Synnex and Corteva Agriscience and is a graduate of the Stanford Executive Program. She holds a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Osmania University and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Houston. Recognized among the "Top Women in Technology in the U.S." by Technology Magazine in 2022, she is a respected leader shaping the future of enterprise technology in the AI era. Nayaki Nayyar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nayakinayyar/ Resources Siteimprove: https://www.siteimprove.com/ The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by TEKsystems. Learn more here: https://aglbrnd.co/r/2868abd8085a9703 Drive your customers to new horizons at the premier retail event of the year for Retail and Brand marketers. Learn more at CRMC 2026, June 1-3. https://aglbrnd.co/r/d15ec37a537c0d74 We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658 Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3 Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Jackie Talbot, Vice President of Product at Hilton. Jackie has a talent for turning frustrating experiences into moments of joy, and she's bringing that mindset to her work at Hilton. There, she's leading the use of AI-powered tools to improve both employee and customer experiences. Jackie explains the idea of “phygital,” which combines digital tools with human interaction to create smoother, more seamless experiences. She also shares lessons from her own podcast, reflects on why authenticity matters in leadership, and highlights the importance of staying curious as you grow your career.Please note that the views expressed may not necessarily be those of NTT DATA.Links: Jackie Talbot How do I navigate this shit Learn more about Launch by NTT DATASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.