ProductTank Newcastle
Hey Product People, Join us for another fantastic evening of networking and learning together at our April meetup. The event details are as follows: Date: Wednesday, April 29th, 2026. Time: 6PM-8:00PM Venue: Haylofts, 5 St Thomas Street, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 4LE Title: Designing for Adoption: Turning AI Strategy Into Live Value In a recent engagement with a UK critical infrastructure organisation, we were asked to shape an AI strategy. The obvious move was to start with data platforms and tooling. We didn’t. Instead, we treated AI as a business-wide capability, horizontal, decentralised, and designed for real teams to adopt, not a vertical programme owned by “tech”. That shift forced us to look through multiple lenses: value and prioritised use cases, people and culture, risk and ethics, operating model changes, enabling tech foundations, and the measures that would prove it was working, or equally wasnt. This talk is a story: the frameworks we used, what surprised us, and the choices that moved AI from “interesting” to meaningfully in production and adopted, rather than a bolt-on gimmick. You’ll leave with a practical framework you can reuse, plus a few workshop patterns to get started quickly. And we’ll end with a provocation: at a moment when product people feel threatened by AI, they may be the best placed to lead intelligence transformation. Kevin's bio I work with product and leadership teams to turn ambiguous problems into clear strategies and build high-performing product functions. Lately, I’ve been focused on what AI changes in product and organisations. Going beyond the tech and focusing on the operating model, decision-making, and adoption. Over my career I’ve partnered with some of the biggest brands in their industries, including Volvo, Roche, Virgin and Lloyds, helping teams move from ideas to outcomes. Agenda: 18:00 – Arrival (Pizza and Drinks) 18:30 – Talk 19:00 – Q & A 1
