Industry Connect      

Why Customer Understanding Matters More In the AI Era?

31 October 2026 | 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM | CMRIT Campus , Marathahalli, Bengaluru

When AI Makes Building Faster, Knowing What to Build Matters More

AI is changing how quickly product teams can research, prototype, and ship. But when everyone has access to similar technology, speed alone is no longer the differentiator. The harder question is: Are we solving the right problem, for the right customer, in the right way?

In this Industry Connect session, Vijeth Pandit, Chief Product Officer at Pine Labs Payments & Setu, will explore why deep customer understanding remains one of the most important skills for Product Managers in an AI-driven product world.

Drawing from 17+ years across product management, fintech, retail, healthtech, edtech, telecom, and technology, including product leadership roles at Razorpay and Amazon, Vijeth will unpack how the PM role is changing as AI reshapes product development.

The conversation will go beyond traditional customer discovery and examine why customer insight needs to become a continuous practice. As customer expectations evolve with AI, PMs need to constantly revisit what users value, how their workflows are changing, and what “good” actually looks like. In AI-powered products, understanding the customer can also shape how teams evaluate output quality, design experiences, and decide where human judgement and control still matter.

The session will also explore the growing gap between buyers and users in enterprise products, and why PMs need to understand both sides of the equation. At its core, the discussion will challenge a fundamental question for today's Product Managers: when AI can help determine what is technically possible and increasingly makes building faster, where should a PM's attention go?

Expect a thought-provoking conversation on customer insight, product discovery, AI-driven product management, desirability, and the changing role of the PM - and why knowing who the product is truly for may become one of the most valuable product skills of all.

Key Takeaways:

  • Even with AI why customer insight matters 
  • Is customer insight truly the moat
  • The shift in PM's job from viability and feasibility checks to purely checking for "Desirability and for whom it is desirable"

**Please Note: If attending in person is not feasible, please register to join the session live via Zoom

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Have Questions?
Reach a Career Counsellor at 080-4710-6006

   Speaker

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Vijeth Pandit

 Chief Product Officer
Pine Labs

 
Vijeth Pandit is a product leader with 17+ years of experience across fintech, telecom, retail, healthtech, edtech, voice technology, and technology. He currently serves as Chief Product Officer at Pine Labs Payments & Setu, where he works across financial infrastructure, fintech, AI, and emerging product experiences.

Before joining Pine Labs, Vijeth held senior product leadership roles at Razorpay, including Senior Director and Director of Product Management. He also spent nearly five years at Amazon, working across retail and Alexa, building products with a strong focus on customer needs and innovation.

An Economic Times Young Leader (2016) and recipient of Amazon's Cowboy Award (2018), Vijeth brings experience across building, scaling, and evolving products in complex and fast-changing markets. He is an alumnus of the Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi (FMS Delhi).

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