May 25, 2026
This is the final blog in Mike’s 8-part series about how AI can become a force for clarity and acceleration across the broader software development lifecycle.
“Organisations that treat AI purely as a delivery accelerator jeopardise the very outcomes they seek. Those that redesign product discovery alongside AI-enabled engineering can turn speed into a durable competitive advantage without increasing risk.”
AI must free product leaders from low-leverage work – manual ticket writing, repetitive clarification, and administrative coordination – and create space for higher-value activities: discovery, experimentation, synthesis, and judgment.
At the same time, organisations must put deliberate mechanisms in place to preserve shared context and intent as delivery accelerates.
In this new operating model, alignment becomes a first-order concern.
EE’s approach to AI-powered discovery and specification is grounded in a small number of core ideas:
EE’s approach continues to evolve. Skills and agentic workflows are enabling more autonomous orchestration, while highlighting the limitations of text-only collaboration.
Our future work will explore how LLMs can better support visual collaboration alongside textual artefacts, and incorporate proactive solicitation of humans during agentic workflows to ensure appropriate oversight.
The discovery and specification approach described across this eight-blog series provides the stability needed to adopt more autonomous capabilities without relinquishing control over outcomes that matter.
Read the full Evolving product discovery for AI delivery eBook
Mike Mitchell is a Product and Strategy Principal at Equal Experts, helping organisations adopt modern product practices and integrate AI into their product lifecycle in practical, sustainable ways.
His current focus is on helping product teams do more meaningful strategic work with AI, both by accelerating the routine work that crowds it out, and by making AI a more proactive, multi-modal collaborator.
Mike brings 35 years of experience in enterprise software, with a foundation of engineering followed by two decades of product leadership. He is a founder of multiple startups, has advised dozens more, and has led multiple enterprise transformations. Just prior to EE, Mike served as a fractional Chief Product Officer, guiding early- and growth-stage firms to deliver value faster through stronger product strategy and operating models. He holds a degree in Computer Science & Engineering from MIT.
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