Four behaviours that drive successful AI products - Matthew Certner (Partner and Garage Lead, IBM)

You can’t build great products on gut instinct, and yet, according to IBM’s global study of 1,000 enterprises, 77% of organisations using generative AI aren’t seeing any financial benefit. In this episode on The Product Experience podcast, Lily Smith sits down with Matthew Certner, Digital Product Engineering and Design Partner at IBM, to unpack the four key traits that drive ROI in AI-powered product teams: flexibility, incremental and targeted delivery, data-led decisions, and cross-functional collaboration.

Recorded live at the Industry conference, this conversation offers practical lessons for any product leader navigating the hype and reality of AI adoption.

Chapters 00:00 – The danger of building on gut instinct 00:37 – IBM’s global study on generative and agentic AI adoption 01:00 – Meet Matthew Certner, Digital Product Engineering Partner at IBM 02:00 – Why most enterprises aren’t realising ROI from AI 04:50 – What the top-performing 20% of companies do differently 05:10 – The four key behaviours driving success 07:00 – Flexibility: adapting quickly to market feedback 08:10 – Incremental and targeted delivery — the “golden thread” principle 10:30 – Data-led decision-making versus the HIPPO effect 11:45 – Cross-functional collaboration and robust adoption 13:10 – Behavioural factors that make or break AI adoption 14:20 – Inside IBM’s “value orchestration” framework 15:10 – The Golden Thread in practice — a sticky-note story from Dallas 17:10 – Transparency and traceability in product development 18:00 – How IBM helps teams that aren’t seeing value from AI 21:00 – The paradox of moving too fast or too slow with AI 24:00 – Making the Golden Thread a living document 25:20 – Inside IBM Garage: speed of a startup, scale of an enterprise 27:40 – Why productivity savings, not hype, drive AI ROI 29:00 – How large organisations structure innovation teams 30:00 – The future: 800 million new products by 2026 31:00 – Why 95% will fail — and what the 5% will get right 33:10 – Final reflections: value, purpose and the human element

Featured Links: Follow Matthew on LinkedIn | IBM Garage | Industry Conference Cleveland 2025 recap at Mind The Product

We want to hear from you! Help make The Product Experience podcast even better. Share your feedback in a quick form: Share your thoughts here! It takes 2 minutes, and your input will help shape future episodes. 🙏 Our Hosts Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath. Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether...