ProductTank Bristol #54

We are back for our second Meetup of the year!

6:00 - Descend , Sip , Snacks , and Strategy
6:25 - Introduction and a warm welcome from our host
6:30 - First Talk
7:15 - Break for more sips and snacks
7:30 - Second Talk
8:15 - Wrap Up
8:20 - End and Depart, with the opportunity for extended discussions at the pub

️ Product in Ecommerce
In ecommerce, you’re often working with two products at once. The physical product or service you’re selling, which likely already has strong market fit, and the digital experience and engine that sells it.

Unlike more traditional digital products, you’re rarely starting from a blank page. Instead, you’re often starting on the back foot. Customer expectations are shaped daily by their experiences elsewhere, from niche brands to global giants like Amazon. The bar keeps rising.

The challenge is not just keeping up with ever evolving ecommerce hygiene factors or understanding your users. It’s about building the right teams, tools and ways of working to consistently meet and exceed those expectations at pace.

This talk explores how product thinking applies in ecommerce, where execution, optimisation and incremental gains matter just as much as discovery. It’s a practical look at what changes when the commercial model is proven, and where product teams can create meaningful, measurable impact.

Tom Jenner
Tom Jenner is currently Manager, Digital Product at YETI, where he leads the digital product function across Europe.
With a background in project and delivery management, Tom eventually crossed over to the “dark side” into product, bringing with him extensive ecommerce experience from global consumer brands including Dyson. His work focuses on building product teams, shaping operating models and turning steady optimisation into measurable commercial growth.
Now back in Bristol after time in Amsterdam, Tom is passionate about sharing practical lessons from working at the intersection of product, commerce and customer experience, and contributing back to the ProductTank community that has shaped his own journey.

️ From UX to AX: Designing Products for People & AI Agents

Your fastest-growing user group is using your product in an entirely different way.

Product teams have spent the last 20 years optimising for humans. Your conversion funnel, site's visual hierarchy, branding and visual design have all been considered from a human user's perspective.

Now AI Agents are using your digital products on behalf of humans, and the things that used to make your product compelling (beautiful UI, engaging animations, persuasive copy) are less visible or entirely irrelevant to AI agents.

So what does "good UX" even mean when that user is an agent?

In this talk, Rob will share a framework for thinking about your product's Agent Experience (AX) — drawing on real examples of businesses getting it spectacularly wrong (MCP servers that flood the context window and make interactions impossible) and others getting it right (like Playwright's approach to writing succinct skills that make their AX a joy). You'll leave with a practical lens for evaluating how AI Agent-ready your product really is, and what actions to take.

Rob Pisacane
Rob Pisacane is a Bristol-based digital product consultant that works with FTSE 100 clients and high-growth scaleups to help them use technology and design to unlock growth and build strategic advantage.
He spends an unreasonable amount of time working with AI — building products and helping clients leverage this new technology to its fullest potential."

Hosted By:
Ghyston
With end-to-end expertise, we can take your ideas from concept to working software. Our Bristol-based team love to be challenged with complex problems and to apply their creative knowledge to come up with a tailored solution.
Founded in 2012 by wife and husband team Emily and Ric Hill, we have established ourselves firmly on the Bristol tech scene, working with businesses in the South West, and beyond. We are proud to be part of the local technical community; our name Ghyston comes from a mythological character from Bristol folklore - the industrious giant who created the Avon gorge!
We put a huge amount of effort into recruiting bright, inquisitive people and train most of our developers and project managers from scratch in house. As a result, we have a close-knit team who work well together and are passionate about creating exceptional outcomes for our clients. https://www.ghyston.com/

Sponsored By:
Four/Four
Four/Four are focused on solving one of the biggest challenges for product teams, truly understanding the needs of your customer so you can build better products.
It’s the manual feedback problem. It takes too long to gather enough of the right evidence to validate product decisions.
Using ChatGPT or Claude doesn’t work as they're too generic, they don’t scale and there’s no workflow. Connecting siloed data from calls, support tickets, emails, etc. means we can extract clear product signals and customer needs, sending these back to your product management tools, to make it easy to spot trends, priorities and link revenue impact to your roadmap.

Pilot Works
Pilot Works is a product and service design consultancy based in Bristol.
We use research and prototyping techniques to help our clients visualise and align on what they need to deliver, in order meet the needs of their users and achieve their organisation’s goals.
As well as hands-on consultancy we also provide training and coaching for individuals and teams.
Find out more at https://pilot.works