Products That Count

A win for the product community

Wed, 06 May 2026 15:59:24 GMT

Last week, the case for product showed up in the Wall Street Journal. Mighty Capital closed an oversubscribed $91M Fund III, three times the size of our last. Behind it are 6 IPOs and over $1 billion of value created.

These outcomes are the result of a thesis this community has lived for years, which we call the Product Alpha Effect. Early product signals are leading indicators of category-defining companies, and product leaders are uniquely positioned to read them.

I'm proud of what this means for the product community. We have been the ones seeing the future first for a long time. The numbers say we were right, and the WSJ coverage says the rest of the world is catching up.

What does this mean for the future of product? The conversation is already underway on my LinkedIn post. I'd love to hear your perspective.

A quick note for our New York City community: join us in person next week for a fireside chat on the human side of product leadership. Request your free ticket here.

Check out some of our recent content from top voices in the product space.

Are you enjoying our Product newsletter? We are always striving to elevate our content and provide ample value. Please share your feedback, questions, and comments.

Deploying Nuclear at Software Speed to Achieve Energy Abundance

SC Moatti — Wed, 06 May 2026 10:51:38 GMT

How can nuclear energy be deployed at software speed to meet the urgency of climate change? The scale and urgency of the transformation required to fight climate change has never been more clear. Building hardware and software products, acquiring the funding and creating a diverse community to enhance talent capacity and to drive innovation, is essential to tackling this global environmental crisis. In this podcast, host Silicon Valley Bank (a division of First Citizens Bank) Climate Tech & Sustainability SVP Maggie Wong will be interviewing Everstar Founder & CEO Kevin Kong to discuss leveraging AI and software to deploy nuclear power, building the right product with the right people, and the importance of grit and empathy in product development.

The 2026 CPO Awards Winners are here

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 18:55:07 GMT

Every year, the CPO Awards are one of my favorite moments in our community, because they remind me just how much the role of the Chief Product Officer has evolved, and how much further it’s going.

When I started Products That Count, “product” meant owning the roadmap and shipping on time. Today, the CPOs I talk to are leading AI strategy, reshaping org charts, and making judgment calls on questions the industry has never had to answer before. The scope of the job has expanded in ways few other C-suite roles have, and the leaders stepping up are rewriting the playbook in real time.

The 2026 CPO Awards winners are exactly those leaders. They’re building the products we use every day, and they’re showing all of us what great looks like in this new era. I am so proud to celebrate them.

Meet the 2026 CPO Awards Winners

Today in San Francisco, winners are gathering for the CPO Awards celebration, where they get an exclusive first look at insights from our highly anticipated annual CPO Insights Report. Huge congratulations to every winner, and thank you to this community for making work like this possible.

Elevate your craft with our free in-person and online events designed to keep you connected and ahead of the curve.

On April 29 in San Francisco: 5th Annual Products That Count CPO Awards for Leadership Excellence. Apply for an invitation.

On April 30 in San Francisco: What It Takes to Build Product at the World’s Largest Companies. RSVP here.

On May 14 in New York City: The Human Side of Product Leadership. Get your ticket.

Check out some of our recent content from top voices in the product space.

Are you enjoying our Product newsletter? We are always striving to elevate our content and provide ample value. Please share your feedback, questions, and comments.

The PM's Second Brain: How AI Becomes Your Personal Chief of Staff

SC Moatti — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 11:07:54 GMT

What if your AI knew your meetings, your goals, and your patterns, and had everything ready before you even opened your laptop? In this episode of Product Talk hosted by Denise Hemke, Rise2.AI Founder Vikash Rungta will be speaking on how product managers can build a "second brain", an AI-powered knowledge system that acts as a personal chief of staff. Vikash shares the exact framework for getting started, the most common mistakes PMs make, and why ingestion matters far more than generation.

What AI Still Can’t Do

SC Moatti — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 11:06:54 GMT

Can AI truly be your co-founder, or is that a role only a human can fill? In this podcast hosted by Hoda Mehr, Co-founder and CEO of Up My Mojo and a Board Member at Products That Count, KC Advisors Executive Leadership Coach Keith Cowing will be speaking on what AI still can't do when it comes to building companies and teams. Drawing on his experience as a former CPO at LinkedIn, Twitter, and Flatiron Health, Keith shares a framework for what makes a great co-founder and whether AI, or an alternative profile, could ever step into that role.

Who's leveling up the PM community?

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 16:45:38 GMT

The strength of any community comes down to the people in it, and Q1 reminded me just how exceptional ours is. I’m proud to recognize our Q1 2026 MVPs and AMA Speakers. These are product leaders who showed up and made our programs better for everyone in them.

Our AMA speakers brought real-world insights directly to participants in our PM Certification Courses, programs designed to up-skill and up-level product teams. Our MVPs represent the best of our chapter and council programs, the members who lead with a genuine commitment to the community. This quarter included Senior Director Product Leaders and VPs from companies like Netflix, Capital One, and Oracle.

These are the people investing in the future of product management, and they’re part of your network. Thank you to all of our Q1 honorees, we’re grateful to have you. And if you're a senior level product leader and you'd like to get involved, apply to join us below.

Apply to join the Advisory Council

Elevate your craft with our free in-person and online events designed to keep you connected and ahead of the curve.

On April 29 in San Francisco: 5th Annual Products That Count CPO Awards for Leadership Excellence. Apply for an invitation.

On April 30 in San Francisco: What It Takes to Build Product at the World’s Largest Companies. RSVP here.

On May 14 in New York City: The Human Side of Product Leadership. Get your ticket.

Check out some of our recent content from top voices in the product space.

Are you enjoying our Product newsletter? We are always striving to elevate our content and provide ample value. Please share your feedback, questions, and comments.

How To Measure Productivity Gain From AI

SC Moatti — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 10:12:51 GMT

How can product and engineering leaders actually prove the ROI of AI adoption when everyone is being asked to justify the investment but few teams have a clear measurement playbook? In this podcast hosted by Hoda Mehr, Co-founder and CEO of Up My Mojo and a Board Member at Products That Count, Pensero AI Co-Founder Bernardo Hernandez will be speaking on how to measure productivity gains from AI in a way that is rigorous, practical, and useful for annual planning cycles. As tools like Cursor and Claude Code promise 3 to 10× productivity gains in engineering, leadership teams are moving quickly to allocate budgets and set expectations, while product leaders are being asked to benchmark progress and quantify impact without clear precedents. This conversation explores how experienced operators are approaching that challenge and what it takes to turn AI productivity claims into measurable results that teams can confidently use for planning and decision-making.

The AI-Native Product Team: How CPOs Are Rebuilding Their Org Charts

SC Moatti — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 08:11:51 GMT

How are Chief Product Officers redesigning their org charts and ways of working to build truly AI-native product teams? In this podcast hosted by Hoda Mehr, Co-founder and CEO of Up My Mojo and a Board Member at Products That Count, Monumental Chief Product Officer Pawan Gaargi will be speaking on how product leaders are transforming their teams to operate in the AI era. As organizations move beyond using AI as a feature-level tool and begin rethinking how products are built, shipped, and managed, product leaders are being asked to reshape processes, decision-making, and collaboration across their teams. Drawing from his experience scaling teams and rebuilding workflows through acquisitions at Monumental and from his early product leadership roots at Zynga, Pawan shares how experimentation, hypothesis-driven thinking, and hands-on leadership are helping teams become AI-native while keeping core product fundamentals like retention, player motivation, and growth metrics firmly in focus.

Conative AI Founder on Connecting Marketing, Inventory, and Operations with AI Forecasting

SC Moatti — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 10:35:12 GMT

How can companies stop losing revenue because marketing, inventory, and operations are working from disconnected data? In this podcast hosted by EY Chief Platform Officer Justin Leibow, Conative.ai Founder Mike Le discusses how AI-driven demand forecasting helps organizations align teams, improve decision-making, and increase cash-flow efficiency. He also explores why clean, connected data matters more than models alone, and how AI agents are reshaping the way product, marketing, and inventory teams collaborate to act faster and smarter.

The blueprint behind products winning in AI

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 17:30:46 GMT

Over the past year, I’ve been watching a shift across the strongest product teams working with AI. It’s no longer enough to add intelligence to products, what matters now is where that intelligence lives and what it does.

This shows up clearly in the 2026 Q1 AI & Data Product Awards Guide, which brings together insights from the 72 products selected by our Awards Advisory Council. These winners reveal where product strategy is heading next, and three signals stand out.

First, intelligence is moving into infrastructure. Winning AI products are embedded directly into operational workflows and decision environments.

Second, AI outcomes now matter more than AI novelty. Leaders want to see improvements in cycle time, quality, cost, and reach, and the winning products deliver measurable results.

Third, we’re seeing the move from insight to agentic execution. AI is increasingly completing work inside enterprise systems, changing expectations for what software should do.

Taken together, these signals point to something important: AI is becoming operational infrastructure.

That’s exactly what the 2026 Q1 AI & Data Product Awards Guide explores. If you’re building products in the AI era, these are patterns worth studying closely. Download your free copy below.

Explore the Q1 Product Guide

Elevate your craft with our free in-person and online events designed to keep you connected and ahead of the curve.

On April 16 in New York City: High-Stakes Calls, Vertical Intelligence, and the AI Product Frontier. Request your invite.

On April 29 in San Francisco: 5th Annual Products That Count CPO Awards for Leadership Excellence. Apply for an invitation.

On April 30 in San Francisco: What It Takes to Build Product at the World’s Largest Companies. RSVP here.

Check out some of our recent content from top voices in the product space.

Are you enjoying our Product newsletter? We are always striving to elevate our content and provide ample value. Please share your feedback, questions, and comments.

Producing Feedstock Materials for Sustainable Manufacturing

SC Moatti — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 11:11:40 GMT

How can sustainable feedstock materials reshape manufacturing while accelerating climate progress? The scale and urgency of the transformation required to fight climate change has never been more clear. Building hardware and software products, acquiring the funding and creating a diverse community to enhance talent capacity and to drive innovation, is essential to tackling this global environmental crisis. In this podcast, host Silicon Valley Bank (a division of First Citizens Bank) Climate Tech & Sustainability SVP Maggie Wong will be interviewing Mothership Materials CEO & Co-Founder Jo Marini to discuss producing sustainable feedstock materials, the importance of customer discovery and building stakeholder relationships and finding joy in product development.

Polygraf AI Head of Product on Securing Enterprise AI Adoption

SC Moatti — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 23:03:46 GMT

How can enterprises unlock AI adoption while keeping sensitive data secure? In this podcast hosted by Boston New Technology CPO Shweta Agrawal, Polygraf AI Head of Product Anar Bayramov discusses how organizations can manage AI risk, protect data flows, and build governance into their AI strategy from the start. He shares lessons from building in regulated environments, explains why visibility into AI usage is the foundation of trust, and explores how product leaders can shift the conversation from fear-driven security to enabling responsible AI at scale.

Level AI Head of Product on Building Trusted Agentic AI for Customer Experience

SC Moatti — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 11:26:38 GMT

How do product leaders decide what AI should automate and what should stay human-in-the-loop? In this podcast hosted by Mphasis VP of Products Chenny Solaiyappan, Level AI Head of Product Sirisha Machiraju will be speaking on how teams move AI from experimentation to strategic priority while balancing trust, adoption, and risk in enterprise environments. She also shares a practical playbook for evaluating assistive vs. agentic workflows and explains how conversation intelligence is reshaping customer experience across industries, including healthcare.

The product framework I’m revisiting 10 years later

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 16:49:31 GMT

About 10 years ago, I came up with a product formula with three rules for building great products: The body rule (great products need to be beautiful), the mind rule (great products need to keep learning), and the spirit rule (great products need to give us meaning).

What’s changing with AI is how these show up in the products we build. Beauty used to mean usability. Today, products are becoming increasingly invisible. Instead of interfaces, we’re designing behaviors. That creates a new responsibility to decide when users need friction instead of seamlessness.

Learning used to depend on iteration speed. Now, iteration is almost instant. The opportunity shifts toward helping teams and users step back and choose what should be optimized.

Meaning used to live mostly in what people created with products, but AI participates directly in creation itself. Questions of ownership and consent are moving from policy conversations into product decisions. Designing for agency is becoming a defining leadership challenge.

If you’re seeing similar shifts in how your teams are building products, continue the conversation with me on LinkedIn.

Elevate your craft with our free in-person and online events designed to keep you connected and ahead of the curve.

On April 16 in New York City: High-Stakes Calls, Vertical Intelligence, and the AI Product Frontier. Request your invite.

On April 29 in San Francisco: 5th Annual Products That Count CPO Awards for Leadership Excellence. Apply for an invitation.

On April 30 in San Francisco: What It Takes to Build Product at the World’s Largest Companies. RSVP here.

Check out some of our recent content from top voices in the product space.

Are you enjoying our Product newsletter? We are always striving to elevate our content and provide ample value. Please share your feedback, questions, and comments.

Former Amazon & PayPal Leader on the Biggest Mistakes in AI Product Building

SC Moatti — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 11:42:39 GMT

How can product leaders cut through AI hype to build products that actually deliver value? In this podcast hosted by Boston New Technology CPO Shweta Agrawal, Former Amazon, PayPal & Target Product Leader West Stringfellow will be speaking on how to apply AI with a product-first mindset. Drawing from decades of experience scaling global platforms, he shares how to balance innovation with discipline, avoid overestimating AI capabilities, and focus on what truly drives customer impact and business growth.

Unit21 Sr Product Lead on Building AI Products Customers Actually Trust

SC Moatti — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 10:45:40 GMT

What does it take to build AI-powered products that customers actually trust? In this podcast hosted by EY Chief Platform Officer Justin Leibow, Unit21 Sr Product Leader Dhiraj Bhat will be speaking on how product leaders can design systems that leverage AI effectively. Drawing from his experience building fraud prevention products, Dhiraj explores the shift from feature-driven PM to systems thinking, and why implementation and trust will define the winners in AI.

The 4-Step AI Prompt Framework Every Product Manager Should Know

SC Moatti — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 11:10:40 GMT

What does it mean to prompt AI the product manager way? In this podcast hosted by Hoda Mehr, Co-founder and CEO of Up My Mojo and a Board Member at Products That Count, Ridge Ventures Venture Partner Akriti Dokania will be speaking on how product leaders can approach AI prompting with a product mindset. Akriti brings a rare perspective, having worked as an engineer and product manager at Amazon and Microsoft and now serving as a venture partner and board member to several successful B2B startups.

The conversation was sparked by an article Akriti recently published on how to prompt AI models the product manager way, an idea that reframes the current AI conversation. While much of the industry focuses on what AI models can do, Akriti argues that the real variable is the person using them: how the problem is framed, how the conversation is structured, and whether the user knows what kind of help they are actually looking for.

Together, they go deep on practical frameworks product builders can use immediately, the mindset shifts that separate those who get real value from AI from those who stay in the shallow end, and what Akriti’s experience across engineering, product management, and venture investing reveals about the difference between product builders who are truly AI-native and those who are simply using AI.

The Q1 product award winners are here

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:53:32 GMT

Every quarter when we review Product Awards submissions, I’m looking for signals from the builders themselves about where product management is moving.

This quarter’s winners made it clear that we’re entering a new phase of product leadership. The strongest products were the most embedded. They’re becoming an essential part of how companies operate: shaping decisions, accelerating workflows, and turning insight into action in ways that would have sounded ambitious even two years ago.

That matters for all of us, because the Product Awards are a snapshot of what “great” looks like right now. They help us see where product excellence is moving before the rest of the market catches up.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing more of what we learned from this quarter’s submissions and what these signals mean for product leaders building in this environment.

For now, I’m excited to introduce this year’s Product Awards winners. Take a look at the full list here. And as always, I’d love to hear what signals you’re seeing in your own product work right now.

Elevate your craft with our free in-person and online events designed to keep you connected and ahead of the curve.

On April 16 in New York City: High-Stakes Calls, Vertical Intelligence, and the AI Product Frontier. Request your invite.

On April 29 in San Francisco: 5th Annual Products That Count CPO Awards for Leadership Excellence. Apply for an invitation.

On April 30 in San Francisco: What It Takes to Build Product at the World’s Largest Companies. RSVP here.

Check out some of our recent content from top voices in the product space.

Are you enjoying our Product newsletter? We are always striving to elevate our content and provide ample value. Please share your feedback, questions, and comments.

Tavant Associate Director of Product on Transitioning from Product to Platform-Centric Strategies and Leveraging AI for Enhanced User Experience and Trust

SC Moatti — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 11:39:11 GMT

How can product leaders navigate the shift from product-centric to platform-centric strategies in financial services? In this podcast hosted by EY Chief Platform Officer within the Financial Services Organization Justin Leibow, Tavant Associate Director of Product Management Sandeep Shivam discusses the evolution of lending experiences through a platform approach. They explore the role of user research in product development, the impact of AI on customer expectations, and the importance of building trust in AI systems. Sandeep shares insights on optimizing operational efficiency, the challenges of regulatory compliance, and the significance of creating real value for users. This episode offers practical guidance for product leaders aiming to enhance user experience and leverage AI effectively in their strategies

Giggso Co-Founder on Responsible AI Governance at Scale

SC Moatti — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 12:29:41 GMT

How can enterprises harness powerful AI responsibly? In this podcast hosted by Mphasis VP of Products Chenny Solaiyappan, Giggso Co-Founder Ravi Venugopal speaks about operationalizing AI safely and responsibly in regulated industries. He shares how governance, security, and observability form the guardrails for enterprise AI, why “AI must be farmed, not left to run wild,” and how leaders can balance experimentation, innovation, and compliance while upskilling their workforce in an AI‑native world.