How to Become an AI First PM and Designer | Paul Adams (CPO Intercom)

How to Become an AI First PM and Designer | Paul Adams (CPO Intercom)

Author: Peter Yang May 10, 2024 Duration: 50:55

My guest today is Paul Adams, Chief Product Officer of Intercom.

When ChatGPT launched, Paul and the Intercom team blew up their roadmap to go all in on AI. Since then, they’ve built an AI-first customer service suite that can provide accurate answers to customers 24/7.

Paul and I spoke about:

1. How PMs and designers can skill up on AI and get hired to work on AI products

2. Why you may not want to start with the problem when building AI products

3. How Intercom blew up its roadmap to build an AI chatbot that can resolve 50% of support queries without a human


Paul is a thoughtful product leader – be sure to subscribe if you enjoy our conversation.


Timestamps: (00:00) Will AI make us dumber and lazier?
(01:32) How PMs and designers can skill up on AI
(05:05) AI will further separate great vs. mediocre PMs
(09:00) The rise of “AI PMs” and how to learn without the BS
(13:44) What Paul looks for when hiring people to work on AI
(16:32) How building AI products is different
(21:05) Why is customer support so terrible
(26:48) How AI will transform customer support
(31:03) Will AI hurt customer support jobs?
(33:00) Why AI products challenge “start with the customer problem”
(38:26) Think big, start small, ship to learn
(46:08) Closing words for advice for building in the age of AI

Where to find me:

Newsletter: https://creatoreconomy.so/


📌 Subscribe to this channel – more interviews coming soon!



For anyone building the future, Behind the Craft is a conversation with Peter Yang that moves beyond theory and into the tangible details of creation. This podcast lives in the messy, rewarding space where ideas become real products. Each episode is built on candid interviews with experts who have been in the trenches, dissecting the pivotal decisions, the unexpected hurdles, and the hard-won lessons that rarely make it into a polished case study. You’ll hear the unvarnished stories behind the features and companies shaping our world, focusing on the practical frameworks and mental models that effective product leaders and creators rely on daily. It’s about understanding the craft from the inside out-the strategic shifts, the team dynamics, the user insights that truly move the needle. Tune in for a direct, no-fluff dialogue designed to accelerate your own journey, providing actionable guidance you can apply immediately to level up your own work. This is where the blueprint meets the build.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Behind the Craft
Podcast Episodes
AI Agents, Clearly Explained in 40 Minutes | Wade Foster (Zapier) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 37:01
Wade is the co-founder and CEO of Zapier. We’re both sick of everyone calling everything an “AI agent” so we had some real talk about what actually works instead. Wade gave me a practical demo of his AI workflow that tri…
AI Evaluations Crash Course in 50 Minutes (2025) | Hamel Husain [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:29
Today, I want to share a new episode with Hamel Husain.Hamel has trained 2,000+ PMs and engineers from companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google on how to run AI evals. In my new episode, he shares a free master class…
Inside Claude Code: How an AI Native Team Actually Works | Cat Wu [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:36
Today, I want to share a new episode with Cat Wu.Cat is the product lead for Claude Code and I got her to share how one of the most AI-native teams in tech actually works. Highlights include getting user feedback every 1…