What AI means for your product strategy | Paul Adams (CPO of Intercom)

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

October 26, 2023

Duration

1h 23m

Channel

Lenny's Podcast

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Paul Adams is the longtime chief product officer at Intercom, where he leads the product management, product design, data science, and research teams. Before Intercom, Paul was the global head of brand design at Facebook, a senior user researcher at Google, and a product designer at Dyson. He’s also a best-selling author, a podcast host, and a public speaker. In today’s episode, we discuss:

• Practical advice on integrating AI into your organization
• Tips and tools for learning AI as a PM
• Hilarious stories from Google and Facebook
• How to build conviction with skeptical coworkers
• Lessons learned from pricing at Intercom
• How Intercom implemented JTBD

— Brought to you by Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments: Eppo—Run reliable, impactful experiments: https://www.geteppo.com/ | Hex—Helping teams ask and answer data questions by working together: https://www.hex.tech/lenny | HelpBar by Chameleon—The free in-app universal search solution built for SaaS: https://helpbar.ai/lenny/?utm_source=lennys-podcast&utm_medium=sponsorship&utm_campaign=helpbar-launch-lennys-podcast Find the transcript and references at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/what-ai-means-for-your-product-strategy-paul-adams-cpo-of-intercom/ Where to find Paul Adams:

• X: https://twitter.com/Padday
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauladams/

Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Paul’s background (04:09) Freezing onstage in front of 8,000 people (07:28) Insights from Google+ days (12:31) Learning from failure (13:56) Intercom’s “ship fast, ship early, ship often” principle (15:17) Integrating AI into product strategy (17:31) Making time for AI learning (19:37) AI in new-product development (21:16) Questions to ask about your product (23:33) How Intercom pivoted after the release of ChatGPT (25:13) Intercom’s AI chatbot, Fin (26:45) The early impact of AI adoption at Intercom (28:53) Capabilities of AI (34:27) How to structure teams around AI products (37:57) Why all teams should be involved in AI (39:04) Staying up to date on emerging technology (42:44) Hurdles implementing AI at Intercom (45:52) Building conviction around AI (49:52) Why you shouldn’t fear AI (50:56) Paul’s “before-after” framework (51:54) Pricing lessons from Intercom (54:54) Paul’s “differentiation vs. table stakes” framework (59:22) What “swinging the pendulum” means and examples from Intercom (1:05:21) Paul’s “product market story fit” framework (1:08:23) His take on JTBD (1:11:01) How Intercom uses the “four forces” framework (1:12:54) Lightning round Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Paul Adams

  guest

• Lenny Rachitsky

  host

• Narrator

  other

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Lenny's Podcast, featuring Paul Adams and Lenny Rachitsky, What AI means for your product strategy | Paul Adams (CPO of Intercom) explores cPO Paul Adams on AI’s Meteoric Impact on Product Strategy, Teams Intercom CPO Paul Adams reflects on major career failures at Google and Facebook, how they shaped his views on leadership, risk, and company-building, and why embracing failure is essential to doing meaningful work.

🔗 RELATED EPISODES

How to build a company that withstands any era | Eric Ries, Lean Startup author

Head of Claude Code: What happens after coding is solved | Boris Cherny

Building product at Stripe: craft, metrics, and customer obsession | Jeff Weinstein (Product lead)

Building a world-class data org | Jessica Lachs (VP of Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash)

What most people miss about marketing | Rory Sutherland (Vice Chairman of Ogilvy UK, author)

5 essential questions to craft a winning strategy | Roger Martin (author, advisor, speaker)