What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why most AI outputs fail without proper context
• How to think of AI like onboarding a new intern (and why that matters)
• Practical first steps for product leaders: decision logs, success metrics, and structured documentation
• How to balance giving AI enough context without overloading it
• The parallels between giving context to teams and to AI systems

Key Takeaways

• AI needs more context than you think. Treat it like a new teammate who doesn’t know your company history, industry, or strategy.
• Start small now. Even if your org isn’t adopting AI yet, you can prepare by documenting decisions, goals, and guardrails in machine-readable ways.
• Not all context is helpful. More isn’t always better—focus on giving AI the minimum effective context to perform well.
• Leaders already do this. The same way you create strategic context for your teams, you’ll need to do it for AI agents.

Resources & Links:

• Follow Teresa Torres: https://ProductTalk.org
• Follow Petra Wille: https://Petra-Wille.com

Mentioned in the episode:

• Agentic AI
• Teresa’s new podcast, Just Now Possible in Youtube, Apple Podcast, and Spotify
• Petra’s Coaching Packages
• ChatGPT
• Henrik Kniberg’s talk at Product at Heart on treating AI agents like interns
• Teresa’s webinars on how she built the Product Talk Interview Coach: Behind the Scenes: Building the Product Talk Interview Coach and How I Designed & Implemented Evals for Product Talk’s Interview Coach
• Josh Seiden’s blog series about AI
• Teresa’s new blog posts: 15 Ways to Use AI at Home (and Fill Your AI Product Toolbox) and 21 Ways to Use AI at Work (And Build Your AI Product Toolbox)
• Petra's new blog post: Why Context, Not Just Data, Will Define AI-Ready Product Teams