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Lenny's Podcast: Interview with Merrily Nika on AI in Product Management

Jul 23, 2024

Lenny's Podcast: Interview with Merrily Nika on AI in Product Management

Keynote Speaker: Merrily Nika

  • Product Lead at Meta (Metaverse avatars and identity)
  • Formerly at Google (Google Glass, speech recognition)
  • Teaches AI and Product Management course on Maven

Key Discussion Points

Introductory Advice on AI

  • Avoid the Shiny Object Trap: Don’t do AI for the sake of AI; ensure there's a problem or pain point to solve smartly.

Merrily Nika’s Background

  • Worked on Google Glass, computer vision, and speech recognition at Google for over 8 years.
  • Current focus at Meta is on metaverse avatars and identity.
  • Teaches a popular course on Maven about AI and product management.

Resources for AI and PMs

  • Subscribe to newsletters like The Download by MIT Technology Review.
  • Refer to open research on platforms like arXiv.

Overhyped vs. Underhyped AI Areas

  • Overhyped: Fear about tech replacing jobs especially in creative fields.
  • Underhyped: Practical applications like AI in lie detection, user segmentation, etc.

AI Tools and Practical Uses

  • ChatGPT: Use for tasks like drafting mission statements, creating user segments, and generating ideas.

Future of AI in Product Management

  • AI to become an integral part of product workflows, enabling better recommendations and automation.
  • PMs will need to collaborate closely with research scientists to implement AI effectively.
  • PMs should get comfortable with uncertainty and research-driven development.

Learning and Implementing AI as a PM

  1. Education: Take courses, participate in workshops, and self-learn coding basics if possible.
  2. Practical Steps: Start with clear problems, use data available, and prototype ideas with figma or other tools.
  3. AI Tools: Utilize no-code platforms like AutoML by Google Cloud to train models without coding.
  4. Research Collaboration: Engage with research scientists to explore feasible AI solutions.

Career Development as an AI PM

  • Courses like Merrily’s on Maven provide a comprehensive start-to-finish approach to AI product management.
  • Understanding key differences between traditional PM and AI PM roles is crucial.
  • PMs need to navigate leadership buy-in with contingency plans and strong examples from adjacent product successes.

Practical Applications from Merrily’s Experience

  • Google AR Glass: AI-enabled real-time translations displayed on AR glasses to facilitate communication across languages.

Challenges in AI Product Management

  • The need for sufficient data: The quality and amount of data significantly impact training successful models.
  • Managing uncertainty and ensuring cross-functional collaboration with researchers.
  • Maintaining sustained buy-in for AI projects can be challenging due to prolonged development cycles.

Key Takeaways from Merrily’s AI PM Course

  • Real-world exercises: Students create and present AI product ideas end-to-end.
  • Topics covered range from ideation, collaboration with research scientists, to productionizing AI models.
  • Challenges include handling data acquisition, managing research uncertainties, and aligning with business goals.

Advice for Aspiring AI PMs

  1. Understand AI Basics: Learn fundamentals even if not deeply technical; it provides confidence and practical insights.
  2. Explore Adjacent Products: Derive inspiration and lessons from successful AI integrations in similar domains.
  3. Practical Implementation: Tools like AutoML for image recognition and other automated model training can simplify the process.
  4. Course Recommendations: Structured learning through platforms like Coursera, General Assembly, Coding Dojo.

Podcast Segment Sponsors

  • Amplitude: Analytics stack for product growth and insights.
  • EPO: A/B testing platform for growth teams.
  • Pando: Continuous employee performance platform.

Lightning Round Insights

  • Book Recommendations: Inspired by Marty Kagan, You Look Like a Thing and I Love You, Adventures of Women in Tech.
  • Podcasts: Boz’s Podcast
  • Favorite Recent TV Show: The White Lotus
  • Favorite Interview Question: Explain a database to a three-year-old.
  • Favorite AI Tool: ChatGPT and Lenza

Full transcript