Evals for PMs: Know If Your AI Feature Works

Part of The AI Evaluation Handbook

Hosted by Aki Wijesundara and Manu Jayawardana

Sun, Jul 5, 2026

9:00 PM UTC (30 minutes)

Virtual (Zoom)

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AI Engineering Bootcamp & Certificate
Aki Wijesundara, PhD and Manu Jayawardana
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What you'll learn

What an eval really is

Testing AI in plain language, so you stop trusting a feature on a good demo alone.

Set up a real check on a feature

Build a simple test live that scores good answers against bad ones, no engineering needed.

Make a confident ship or hold call

How an eval gives you evidence to launch or wait, instead of a gut feeling.

Why this topic matters

Your AI feature demos great and then does something embarrassing the day after launch. This free 30 minute session shows what evals are in plain terms: the way you test whether an AI feature actually works before you ship it, not after a customer screenshots the failure. We take a simple AI feature and set up a real check on it live, so you see how to score good answers against bad ones. You leave able to ask the one question that should gate every AI launch: does this actually work?

You'll learn from

Aki Wijesundara

AI Advisor | Educator | Google AI Accelerator Alum

Aki Wijesundara is an AI leader with a PhD in Machine Learning and extensive experience mentoring startups at Google’s AI Accelerator. With a career spanning both research and applied AI, Aki has taught 5,000+ students worldwide how to design and deploy production-ready AI systems.

He has worked across cutting-edge areas of applied AI, from LangChain and RAG pipelines to observability and large-scale deployment. As a researcher and educator, Aki bridges the gap between theory and practice, making complex systems approachable and actionable for engineers, founders, and product leaders.

Aki is also a frequent speaker and advisor to organizations adopting AI, helping them transition from experimentation to production at scale.

Manu Jayawardana

AI Founder | Co-Founder & CEO at Krybe | Co-Founder of Snapdrum

Manu Jayawardana is a serial entrepreneur with multiple AI startup successes.

He is also the Co-Founder of Snapdrum, an AI consultancy helping companies integrate and automate their businesses using AI. Through Snapdrum, Manu has worked with top startups and enterprises across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, advising on automation, product development, and AI strategy.

Currently, Manu is the Co-Founder & CEO of Krybe, an AI voice agent startup in London transforming how businesses automate customer interactions. His experience spans fundraising, scaling products, and leading teams to deliver production-grade AI solutions adopted globally.

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