4 - 5 Weeks
·Cohort-based Course
Research can take too long. Master AI tools to get decision-ready insights fast—and defend your roadmap with speed, clarity, and confidence.
4 - 5 Weeks
·Cohort-based Course
Research can take too long. Master AI tools to get decision-ready insights fast—and defend your roadmap with speed, clarity, and confidence.
CLASS PARTICIPANTS FROM
Course overview
You’re expected to back big decisions with evidence ... fast.
But research takes weeks, and your sprint won’t wait.
Without insight, your roadmap is exposed.
Without time, you’re flying blind.
You need answers you can trust – at the speed product demands.
This course solves that.
Rapid AI Research for PMs
Shrink research from weeks to hours. Defend your roadmap with confidence.
In this 4-week, hands-on course, you’ll master a new way to answer critical product questions – fast, credibly, and without needing a dedicated research team.
You'll combine purpose-built AI research tools and flexible prompting skills so you can operate in any environment—even if your company blocks new software.
By the end, you’ll go from hunch → tested insight → evidence-backed decision in under 24 hours.
🚀 What You’ll Actually Learn to Do
This course mirrors the real flow of product discovery:
🔎 1. Start with a strategic product question
You’ll define a real decision you need to make, and turn it into a focused research plan.
→ What assumptions must be true for this to succeed?
🛠 2. Use AI to build and launch a research study—fast
You’ll learn how to use tools like Wondering and ListenLabs to generate interview guides, auto-schedule AI-moderated interviews, and recruit users overnight.
→ No meetings, no waiting on UX.
If your team can’t approve those tools?
No problem—you’ll also master prompt-based workflows to simulate user feedback, summarize forums, and build studies using ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.
🎥 3. Test concepts and capture rich feedback at scale
You’ll gather qualitative insights – whether from real users or synthetic ones – and learn how to generate summaries, transcripts, and video highlight reels you can trust.
🧠 4. Synthesize across sources and surface the real patterns
You’ll use tools like Marvin and Coloop – or custom prompts – to analyze interview transcripts, support logs, app store reviews, or survey data.
→ What themes are emerging? What’s surprising? What can I act on?
🧾 5. Produce a 1-page, executive-ready recommendation
For your capstone, you’ll bring it all together in a defensible, evidence-backed Go / No-Go brief. It’s the kind of document you’ll reuse in roadmap reviews, pitch decks, or strategy memos showing not just what you think, but why.
🧠 What You’ll Walk Away With
✅ AI research workflows that slot into your sprint—not fight it
✅ Evidence you can use in planning, roadmap defenses, and executive decks
✅ Confidence to defend decisions—and challenge assumptions—with data
✅ A prompt library for discovery, validation, and synthesis
✅ A real-world toolkit that works with or without enterprise AI tools
✅ Time back every week—so you can spend less time wrangling feedback and more time leading
🔍 Why This Course Is Worth It
Because you already know the cost of skipping research:
🚩 Missed needs
🚩 Misplaced bets
🚩 Confident presentations with shaky backing
This course gives you the workflows, tools, and framing to become the PM who always has customer evidence in hand—without needing to slow down.
It’s not just about speed.
It’s about strategy that sticks, and a reputation for decisions that hold up under scrutiny.
🧰 What Makes This Course Unique
🎙 Tool + founder access – Get guided trials of real platforms (ListenLabs, Coloop, Marvin) and hear directly from the people building them—so you understand not just what they do, but why.
⚙️ Prompting-first mindset – Learn AI workflows that work even without tools. Prompt your way to insight using general-purpose LLMs, safely and flexibly—no install required.
🧪 Practice with your real product decisions – You won’t learn in the abstract. Each week, you’ll apply what you learn to a strategic decision you're facing right now.
👥 Hands-on, collaborative format – Each session blends expert demos, peer breakout groups, live critiques, and take-home sprints. This is not a lecture series—it’s a working lab.
📎 Repeatable, shareable assets – Leave with a complete research toolkit: interview templates, prompt libraries, decision memos, and synthesis workflows you can plug into your team immediately.
🗓 Course Format
Live Workshops: Four 2-hour sessions, offered twice every Thursday (1–3pm or 7–9pm ET)
Homework Sprints: 1–2 hours/week to apply each workflow to your product
Office Hours: Weekly Q&A for deeper dives, troubleshooting, and feedback
On-Demand Resources: Walkthroughs, videos, prompt libraries, and templates for reuse
🧭 By the End of This Course
You’ll know how to turn product questions into tested answers—in hours, not weeks.
You’ll have the evidence to defend your roadmap.
You’ll become the PM who shows up with insights and results—not excuses.
01
Time-pressed PMs who need fresh user evidence to ship features—without waiting on a research team.
02
PMs eager to fold AI-powered discovery loops and concept tests into their workflow in weeks, not quarters.
03
Senior product leaders seeking confident, user-centric roadmap calls via rapid synthetic-user & qual-at-scale studies.
Ask Better Questions. Get Insight in Hours.
Start with a strategic question—like “Will customers use this?” or “Is this worth building?”—and turn it into an AI-powered study in minutes. You’ll learn how to scope, prompt, and launch AI-moderated research that delivers real evidence by morning.
AI Discovery Sprints That Fit in a Sprint
Use tools like ListenLabs or Wondering to generate interview guides, recruit users, and auto-run conversations overnight. Themes are clustered by AI, transcripts are searchable, and video highlights are exportable—ready for standups, pitch decks, or planning docs.
Continuous Feedback Without the Chaos
Connect tools like NEXT, Sprig, or raw data to AI prompts that tag, group, and summarize incoming feedback. You’ll build a continuous loop that flags real changes in sentiment or behavior—so you never miss the moment to pivot or double down.
Fast Concept Tests. Clear Go / Iterate / Kill Calls.
Test new ideas with AI surveys, concept validations, and short-form interviews. Capture screen recordings, sentiment signals, and usage reactions—then let AI tools cluster results and generate summary reports that cut through ambiguity with clarity.
Synthetic Users for Edge Cases & Idea Stretching
Generate credible synthetic personas trained on customer data to simulate interviews, test assumptions, and explore edge cases. Then triangulate with real feedback for high-confidence decisions. Learn to ask “impossible questions” safely and early.
Synthesize Across Sources—Not Just Summarize One
Combine interview transcripts, app reviews, support tickets, and market intel into a single insight story. You’ll use tools like Marvin and Coloop—or structured prompts—to find themes, contradictions, and alignment. Great PMs don’t collect—they synthesize.
Evidence-Backed, 1-Page Strategic Recommendations
Your capstone: A Go/No-Go brief that is a polished, insight-backed recommendation with linked quotes, videos, and a clear recommendation. This format becomes a reusable asset in roadmap reviews, strategic pitches, and prioritization meetings—where proof matters most.
Live sessions
Learn directly from John Whalen in a real-time, interactive format.
Lifetime access
Go back to course content and recordings whenever you need to.
Community of peers
Stay accountable and share insights with like-minded professionals.
Certificate of completion
Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.
Real-World AI Tool Access
Get guided access to ListenLabs, Marvin, Coloop, and more—no guesswork, no sales decks, just practical experience.
Field-Tested AI Research Guides
Includes step-by-step guides for sprints, synthesis, concept tests, and prompt workflows—built for real PM use.
Reusable Prompt Libraries & Templates
Copy-paste prompts and prebuilt frameworks for interviews, analysis, and strategic memos—ready on day one.
Live Expert Workshops (2x Weekly)
Join interactive, small-group sessions with demos, breakouts, and live feedback—at a time that fits your schedule.
Maven Guarantee
This course is backed by the Maven Guarantee. Students are eligible for a full refund up until the halfway point of the course.
8 live sessions • 24 lessons • 3 projects
Aug
21
Rapid AI Research for PMs - Class 1
Aug
21
Rapid AI Research for PMs - Class 1 (repeat)
Aug
28
AI-Powered Customer Research for PMs - Class 2
Aug
28
AI-Powered Customer Research for PMs - Class 2 (repeat)
Sep
11
AI-Powered Customer Research for PMs - Class 3
Sep
11
AI-Powered Customer Research for PMs - Class 3 (repeat)
Sep
18
AI-Powered Customer Research for PMs - Class 4
Sep
18
AI-Powered Customer Research for PMs - Class 4 (Repeat)
Chris
Abigail
Len
Jenny
Olga Hörding
Suzanne Hillman, M.S.
John Gusiff
Becky White
Nivi Singh‑Frenger
Heather Patrick
I lead Insights & Innovation at Brilliant Experience, where I help global brands uncover the psychology behind customer behavior—and turn that understanding into successful, user-aligned products.
With a PhD in Cognitive Science from Johns Hopkins, I bring 20+ years of experience combining academic rigor with hands-on product strategy. I've advised teams at Google, PayPal, Capital One, and the U.S. government, and I’m the author of Design for How People Think (O’Reilly).
Though I was initially skeptical about AI, my team and I ran a series of “AI vs. Humans” benchmark studies to understand where AI helps—and where it falls short. That work convinced me: AI is not replacing human researchers, but it is radically transforming how fast and how often we can run great research.
Today, I use AI tools daily to design, run, and analyze scaled customer studies—often in hours, not weeks. I regularly interview AI research tool founders on my podcast and YouTube channel, and have tested dozens of tools so you don’t have to.
This course distills that experience into a practical system: how Product Managers, UXRs, and cross-functional teams can confidently use AI to move faster, reduce risk, and make better product decisions—without needing a dedicated research team.
Clients
Career highlights
PhD in Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University
Founder & CEO, Brilliant Experience (est. 2011)
Led insights projects for Google, PayPal, Capital One, and top startups
Created Brilliant’s AI-Accelerated Insights Workflow for faster, defensible decisions
Author of Design for How People Think (O’Reilly, 2019)
Top 100 Maven Instructor across UX and AI research courses
Join an upcoming cohort
August 2025
$995
Dates
Payment Deadline
October 2025
$995
Dates
Payment Deadline
4 hours per week
Thursdays
1-3 pm EST or 7-9 pm EST (your choice)
Interactive workshop: Learn new concepts and get set up to conduct hands-on training with AI-powered research tools.
Workshops are being run identically in the afternoon and evening so that you can pick what works best for you!
Weekly projects
2 hours per week
Test and master AI-powered tools for Product Discovery, Continuous Discovery and Concept Testing. Determine which tools are right for you.
Office hours
2 hours per week
Optional time to meet with the session host and get 1:1 advice and support.
Active hands-on learning
This course builds on live workshops and hands-on projects
Interactive and project-based
You’ll be interacting with other learners through breakout rooms and project teams
Learn with a cohort of peers
Join a community of like-minded people who want to learn and grow alongside you
Sign up to be the first to know about course updates.
Join an upcoming cohort
August 2025
$995
Dates
Payment Deadline
October 2025
$995
Dates
Payment Deadline
$995
4 - 5 Weeks