How can AI be used when scaling enterprise software? In this episode of Product Talk hosted by Sid Shaik, Amazon Fmr. Product Manager Polly Allen speaks on how to scale enterprise software businesses using AI. Polly discusses the role of AI in both the pre-product market fit phase and post-product market fit phase, highlighting the importance of prototyping quickly and creating personalized content. She also addresses the challenges of revenue generation in AI-driven businesses and the need for companies to start with internal use cases to improve efficiencies. Polly provides examples of how AI can be integrated into regulated industries like Schneider Electric and the critical considerations around managing the blast radius of AI’s unpredictable outputs.
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Show Notes
- Scaling enterprise software with AI in the pre-product market fit phase involves enabling rapid prototyping and testing.
- AI can also scale businesses post-product market fit by enabling content creation and personalization at scale.
- Generating revenue from AI-driven businesses can be challenging, as the technology is still maturing.
- Companies should start with internal use cases to improve efficiencies before tackling more ambitious AI projects.
- Regulated industries like energy and pharma can leverage AI for efficiencies, new product offerings, and “moonshot” opportunities.
- The concept of “digital twins” can accelerate innovation and reduce costs in traditional industries.
- Integrating AI into critical infrastructure requires careful management of the “blast radius” of unpredictable outputs.
- Foundation model providers like Microsoft and Amazon are helping address security and compliance concerns in regulated industries.
- The 2024 election cycle has seen less AI-driven misinformation and deepfakes compared to previous cycles.
- Polly is disappointed the election cycle hasn’t seen more AI-driven conspiracy theories.
- Advice for product managers looking to transition into AI: find an interesting problem to work on, get hands-on experience, and join a community.
- Polly founded AI Career Boost to help more people transition into AI leadership roles.
- AI Career Boost offers a “Complete Product Leader Blueprint” program to teach both traditional and generative AI.
- The program includes hands-on project work and support for integrating AI into participants’ careers or companies.
- Polly emphasizes the importance of having diverse perspectives, beyond just technical backgrounds, in AI decision-making.
- Lack of diversity in AI leadership is a key motivation behind Polly’s work with AI Career Boost.
- The monthly “Path to AI Product Manager” masterclass is another offering from AI Career Boost.
- Polly believes hands-on experience and community support are crucial for successful AI career transitions.
- Polly’s departure from Amazon coincided with the launch of ChatGPT, further fueling her passion for AI education and leadership.
About the speaker
Polly Allen has over 20 years experience developing software, building and leading software teams and most recently leading cross-functional science and engineering teams as a Principal Product Manager for Alexa AI at Amazon. Her expertise is focused in natural language use cases, such as search and discovery, natural language understanding and generation, and she led the development and launch of the first automatically-generated summaries of web content on Alexa in 2020. (And yes, it used transformer models like those that drive ChatGPT!) As a leader in the intersection of Product Management and Machine Learning, she is passionate about DEI in the space and founded AI Career Boost with the mission of empowering more people to understand, leverage and thrive in AI-related careers. She is an experienced angel investor and past corporate board member, has advised multiple startups, and speaks on panels and conferences about Product Management, Ethics and DEI in AI. She holds a M.Sc. in Software Engineering from MIT and the University of Victoria, and an MBA from the University of British Columbia.
About the host
Sid is a seasoned Product Leader in the Data Platforms domain. At present, he runs Product at Cloudera for its fastest growing product line, Private Cloud Data Services. Prior to Cloudera, he co-founded a Silicon Valley startup-- Performance Sherpa; his company built performance engineering workflow automation for databases and middleware. Prior to those roles, he worked at Yahoo!, Qubole, Asterdata and Oracle in various Product and Engineering roles. As a Product Manager, Sid loves the creative process of discovering, defining and solving meaningful technology problems in large markets and enjoys scaling product businesses. In his down time, he enjoys taking his kids to soccer practice, he practices yoga, and advises startups.