What remains?
- Shaun Russell

14.15
Main Stage K6

Surbhi Marwah: Dancing with Uncertainty: What remains human in an AI-accelerated product world

Thomas Brouwer: Having a PM AI-dentity crisis? Conviction is your answer

Pippa Topp: Staying Human in an AI World: Why Connection and Creativity Still Matter Most

Dancing with Uncertainty: What remains human in an AI-accelerated product world

AI can now generate product ideas, designs, code, and experiments in minutes. Execution is becoming cheaper and faster than ever before.

But one thing hasn’t changed: someone still has to decide what should exist in the world. As AI transforms how products are built, the hardest part of product leadership is no longer execution — it’s navigating uncertainty and making the right decisions before the answer is obvious.

In this talk, Surbhi Marwah shares lessons from building and scaling digital products in fast-growing platform businesses. Through real examples from scale-up environments, she explores a few human capabilities that remain critical in an AI-accelerated world: deeply understanding problems beyond the data, imagining how products and ecosystems may evolve, and exercising product judgment when multiple “good” options exist.

AI can dramatically accelerate analysis and execution. But the intent behind a product — what problem matters, who it should serve, and what makes it truly great — still depends on human judgment.

Because in a world where AI can build almost anything, the real question becomes: Are we building the right things?

Surbhi Marwah
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/superbae/

Having a PM AI-dentity crisis? Conviction is your answer

Have you ever worked on a product or feature you didn’t really believe in? Odds are, it didn’t succeed.

AI has made us more powerful, supercharging us to build anything - but mostly the wrong things, faster. It is now more important than ever that PMs develop conviction: a strong belief in the problem we are tackling, how to solve it, and the strategy for getting there. Without it, we will keep building the wrong products.

But how does one build conviction, and what can we do when we don’t believe in the problem we are given? I will share real stories of how conviction can lead to success - and a lack thereof, to failure.

Thomas Brouwer
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-brouwer-phd-73a7176b/

Staying Human in an AI World: Why Connection and Creativity Still Matter Most

As AI accelerates how we think, create, and build, product teams now have the option to outsource more and more of their cognitive and creative work to machines. In many organisations, this will be seen as progress. Faster outputs, greater efficiency, and improved productivity.

But there is a trade-off.

Because no matter how digital our work becomes, we still live in a human, sensory world. The things that give us energy, meaning, and fulfilment, connection with others and the act of creating, are fundamental to our wellbeing. Research also shows they are essential drivers of innovation and original thinking.

In this reflective keynote, Pippa Topp explores the tension between augmentation and loss. What happens if, in optimising for productivity, we begin to lose touch with the human capabilities that make great products possible in the first place?

Blending personal stories, future-of-work research, and product leadership insight, she looks at what must remain human in an AI-enabled world, and what this means for how we design experiences, lead teams, and create the conditions where creativity and connection can thrive.

Because success in an AI world will not be defined only by efficiency, but by our ability to stay connected, creative, and fully human.

Pippa Topp
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pippa-topp/