Strategic AI Product Leadership: Build Products. Drive Transformation.

Strategic AI Product Leadership: Build Products. Drive Transformation.

“Derya Isler gives leaders the framework to balance quick wins against long-term strategic bets, allocating resources, measuring real ROI, and knowing when to scale, pivot, or pull the plug. The result is an AI program that moves past theater and delivers the kind of measurable, compounding returns that turn AI from a cost center into a competitive weapon. This is the book your competitors hope you never read.” ― Jeremy Ball, Director of Engineering, Netflix In today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, artificial intelligence has shifted from a competitive advantage to a business imperative. Yet most organizations still struggle to turn AI aspiration into real, scalable product success. Strategic AI Product Leadership gives product leaders a clear, practical roadmap for navigating the unique challenges of AI; from defining strategy and managing data to designing trustworthy user experiences and scaling enterprise-grade solutions. Drawing on years of hands-on experience leading AI initiatives at global companies including Meta, Spotify, and Salesforce, Derya Isler offers a comprehensive, end-to-end playbook for building AI products that deliver real business and user value. Blending strategic insight with practical frameworks, this book equips leaders at any level to build, launch, scale, and sustain successful AI products that outperform competitors and stand the test of time. Whether you’re an aspiring AI product manager or a seasoned executive responsible for enterprise transformation, Strategic AI Product Leadership provides the vision, tools, and confidence you need to lead your organization into the AI-powered future. Inside, you’ll learn how to: Understand what makes AI products fundamentally different and how to rethink product management for an AI-first world - Build a robust data strategy, manage risks, and design user experiences that inspire trust - Develop MVPs for AI products, evaluate models, and define success with metrics that matter - Scale AI solutions from pilot to enterprise-wide deployment - Make smart decisions about what to build vs. buy, how to invest, and how to measure ROI - Lead AI initiatives with strong governance, ethical frameworks, and risk mitigation - Transform your organization into an AI-ready powerhouse with the right talent, culture, and operating models Derya Isler is an AI product leader with deep experience building and scaling AI systems across global technology companies. Over the past decade, she has led teams developing machine learning, recommendation systems, generative AI, and enterprise AI platforms, helping bridge the gap between technological innovation and real-world product impact. Derya is the vice president of AI at Salesforce, where she leads engineering and product organizations focused on building AI applications, from machine learning (ML) products to agentic systems. She is also the founder of Strategic AI Leadership, where she helps companies transform through targeted AI investments and scalable AI solutions. Before Salesforce, she held executive roles and built and led teams responsible for some of the industry’s most widely used AI-powered products, such as Instagram Reels and Spotify personalized playlists. In addition to her industry work, Derya teaches AI product management at Boston College, serves as an advisor to startups through major accelerators, and runs AI product management courses to help product managers transition into and grow within AI roles.