Zero Cost, Full Context: Product in the AI Age

NOTE: NEW VENUE!

We're delighted to announce the final ProductTank Oxford in-person meetup of 2026 at a new venue! After a standing room only event in September, we're moving to a larger space at the St. Aldates Tavern in central Oxford. This month, we're joined by two of the leading lights of the UK Product leadership community, for an amazing talk, and a hands-on workshop.

6:00pm Doors open, drinks, and networking
6:50pm Welcome
7:00pm Dave Wascha - Dividing by Zero
7:45pm Break
8:00pm Faith Forster - Make Context Explicit
8:45pm Wrap-up
8:50pm Close (but you're welcome to stick around!)

We hope you can join us!

Dividing By Zero - Dave Wascha
In 628 AD, a mathematician named Brahmagupta defined zero. It took the world five hundred years to accept it — because zero didn't just add a new number to the system. It broke every equation the system was built on.
Every framework product teams use to make decisions has the cost of building software in the denominator. That cost just went to zero, and the frameworks are returning an error.

Every talk on this subject arrives at the same comforting answer: what's left for humans is judgment and taste. Dividing by Zero starts where that answer ends. Because the interesting thing isn't what got divided out of your job. It's what got multiplied into it — and what it means when the loops we work in start running fast enough to rewrite themselves. The machines are doing more of the tasks. The human work is moving upstream: deciding what gets optimised, what stays fixed, and what the system is allowed to change.

This is a talk about economics, not ideology — including a problem no machine has solved, and the one time it was solved anyway. The thinking you'll need was written before most of us were born. It was waiting for the tempo to catch up.

If you've felt disoriented by how fast things are moving, this talk will explain why — and send you home with something to make on Monday.

Dave Wascha has spent his career building, scaling, and transforming technology businesses. Today, he works with founders, CEOs, boards, and investors at moments of consequence — when the stakes are high and the answers aren't obvious.

His work spans strategy, product development, business growth, and AI transformation. A sought-after advisor on the practical adoption of AI, Dave helps organisations rethink how they operate, make decisions, and create value as technology reshapes the competitive landscape. He works with venture-backed and private equity-backed businesses, advises investment firms including Kindred Capital, Albion VC, and Highland Europe, and coaches senior executives and high-potential leaders.

Dave brings extensive operating experience to his advisory work. He spent 14 years at Microsoft before holding senior product and technology leadership roles at Zoopla, Photobox, Moonpig, and MOO, including multiple Chief Product and Technology Officer positions. He also serves in board and non-executive roles.

As a speaker, Dave is known for his provocative, entertaining talks that challenge conventional wisdom about innovation, technology, and leadership. Combining sharp insights, irreverent humour, and stories from the front lines of business transformation, he encourages audiences to question established assumptions and rethink what's possible — particularly as AI reshapes how organisations operate and compete.

Make Context Explicit: Is your product context good enough? - Faith Forster
Most teams’ first AI agents disappoint, and it’s rarely the prompting. The models are capable; they just don’t know your product. Every conversation starts from zero, and every person’s AI works from a slightly different understanding of your customers, competitors and strategy.

Make Context Explicit is a principle from the Makers Manifesto and the first step to working in an AI-native way. But what exactly is product context, and what does good look like?

In this session, Faith Forster will introduce a Product Context Maturity Model. You’ll assess your product/ organisation live, compare your results with others, and leave with recommendations on where to focus to fill the gaps.

Faith Forster is a seasoned Product Executive, including Wise, Dext and Legl. She has extensive experience building and scaling digital products, from early stage, VC and PE backed, through to exit. She has built & launched AI native products, including [Discoveree.com ](discoveree.com)- a shared context layer for product teams, and transformed the operating model and ways of working (including with AI) across multiple organisations, always with a focus on driving customer and commercial value.

She is the co-host of a weekly podcast on building AI native products, Building Out Loud, and organiser of the Makers Manifesto, created by a global group of 45 experts and operators, on how to make great products in an AI age.