Episode

CPO Rising Series: Rakuten Rewards CPO on Human Judgment in the AI Era

Podcast
Product Talk
Published
Jul 1, 2026
Duration seconds
1852
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not_requested
Canonical source
https://productsthatcount.libsyn.com/cpo-rising-series-rakuten-rewards-cpo-on-human-judgment-in-the-ai-era
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https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/productsthatcount/Nilesh_Khandelwal_Podcast_Audio_Version.mp3?dest-id=302280
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/v1/public/podcasts/product-talk-216178/episodes/cpo-rising-series-rakuten-rewards-cpo-on-human-judgment-in-the-ai-era
Markdown
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Summary

What does it mean to govern a decision model instead of a roadmap? In this episode of the CPO Rising Series hosted by Products That Count Resident CPO Jay Patel, Rakuten Rewards CPO Nilesh Khandelwal will be speaking on how AI is shifting the product leader's job from execution management to decision architecture. He also shares his three-bucket prioritization framework, the concept of "glues" as a retention lever, and why saying no to guaranteed revenue is sometimes the most strategic move a CPO can make.