Lightning Lessons

The AI Research Toolkit Every PM Needs in 2025

Hosted by John Whalen, PhD

Wed, Oct 22, 2025

3:00 PM UTC (30 minutes)

Virtual (Zoom)

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Rapid AI Research for PMs: Decision-Ready Customer Insights in Hours - not Weeks
John Whalen
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What you'll learn

AI-Powered Discovery Sprints

Turn product bets into focused research questions and run AI-moderated interviews to validate direction overnight.

Continuous Discovery Loops

Surface trends, link verbatims, and keep AI-powered insights flowing into every sprint.

AI Analysis of Research

Use AI to scale concept tests, collect reactions, and synthesize results in hours so you can decide with confidence.

Synthetic User Studies

Leverage AI personas to stress-test assumptions, explore edge cases, and validate with users.

Why this topic matters

Most PMs aren’t trained researchers, yet product success depends on having fresh, trustworthy customer evidence. Too often, roadmap calls default to gut feel because research takes too long or feels out of reach. With the right AI skills, PMs can cut through this bottleneck—delivering research-backed decisions at the speed product work demands.

You'll learn from

John Whalen, PhD

AI for UX Expert, Fortune 100 clientele, CEO, author & speaker

I lead Insights & Innovation at Brilliant Experience, where I help global brands understand the psychology behind their customers' behaviors and bring successful products to market.


Initially skeptical about AI, my team and I conducted “AI vs. Humans” studies to pinpoint precisely where AI-enhanced research excels—and where human judgment remains irreplaceable. I became convinced that AI will transform how research will be done.


Now I've reviewed >100 AI-enhanced tools and regularly interview pioneering founders in the AI-for-UX space and (thoughtfully) leverage the latest AI tools to deliver Accelerated Insights: rapid, scaled, global insights for top brands.


With a PhD from Johns Hopkins, and author of Design for How People Think, I combine academic rigor with real-world pragmatism to help you harness the new realities of AI-powered research.

Clients include

Google
Capital One
Bloomberg
Mars Wrigley
Blue Cross Blue Shield

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