How Bain & Company adapted its product strategy for AI: Kasia Mrowca (Director of Product) — Product Unplugged

In this episode of Product Unplugged, host Mike Belsito speaks with Kasia Mrowca, Director of Product at Bain & Company about navigating the chaos—and opportunity—that comes with emerging technologies like AI. Kasia shares how her team made a bold pivot to integrate AI into their product roadmap after it was already signed off and budgeted, and what it took to bring stakeholders, legal, and users along for the ride.

Key Takeaways

• “Don’t be afraid to pivot.” Kasia reminds us that small, low-risk experiments can unlock big strategic shifts—before your competitors get there first.
• Stakeholder fluency matters. Legal, ethics, business and tech teams all speak different languages—great product people translate across them.
• AI doesn’t need to be huge to matter. Their first use case was small, efficient, and experimental—and still showed massive value.
• Data trumps opinions. Using product analytics was key to proving their AI feature delivered value, helping turn an experiment into a core roadmap shift.
• Explain, don’t just ship. Don’t assume users (or stakeholders) will “figure it out”—clear messaging and education go a long way when rolling out new tech.

Chapters

• 00:00 – Intro & Meet Kasha from Bain & Company

• 01:30 – AI's inflection point

• 04:00 – Roadmaps vs. real life: pivoting with purpose

• 07:00 – Using AI to unlock old ideas from the “someday” pile

• 10:00 – The stakeholder gauntlet: legal, ethics, and risk

• 13:30 – The trade-offs of adopting new tech mid-cycle

• 15:30 – Measuring success: how product analytics told the story

• 17:00 – From feature to focus: expanding AI post-experiment

• 20:00 – What Kasia would do differently next time

• 22:00 – Final takeaway: why playing it safe is the riskiest move