Unit21 Sr Product Lead on Building AI Products Customers Actually Trust

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 building AI products customers actually trust. 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.

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Show Notes

1. AI is not about replacing humans—it’s about structuring and scaling human judgment.
2. The role of the product manager is evolving into a true “GM” of the product.
3. PMs are shifting from feature builders to systems designers.
4. The companies that win in AI will build the best systems around models—not just the best models.
5. Trust and implementation are becoming the primary competitive moats in AI products.
6. AI lowers the barrier to acquiring new skills, accelerating PM growth across disciplines.
7. Technical and non-technical PM backgrounds are converging into a single, hybrid skill set.
8. Product decisions are moving from “what can we build?” to “what is worth investing in?”
9. Early-stage product building requires balancing limited customer signals with long-term vision.
10. Strong products are built by understanding workflows—not just jobs to be done.
11. Designing for existing customer systems creates more adoption than forcing new paradigms.
12. Customer roundtables help identify patterns, but shouldn’t directly dictate the roadmap.
13. Product leaders must balance individual customer requests with broader strategic priorities.
14. Industry-level thinking is critical—products should align with where the market is going, not just current needs.
15. AI adoption depends on meeting customers where they are, especially around data and security constraints.
16. Embedding AI into existing trusted environments reduces friction and increases adoption.
17. Network-based products (like fraud consortiums) depend heavily on trust and data privacy.
18. AI will likely collapse the “middle layer” of work, elevating both execution and high-level judgment.
19. The future of consulting and strategy will shift toward simulation and multiple scenario testing.
20. The most valuable skill for PMs is rapidly closing the gap between what they know and what they need to learn.