Navigating the Balance Between Incrementalism and High-Impact AI Solutions

On this episode of Deployed, we talk with Kelly Schaefer, a Product Director at Google Labs and who’s been recognized as one of the Top 100 Women in AI. Kelly has led a portfolio of experimental AI products like NotebookLM and the Jules coding agent. The Google Labs team helps turn DeepMind research into real products that can work at Google scale.

She shares what actually works when shipping AI features, from how her teams use evals to drive product quality, to why speed matters more than perfection. We also talk about how PM and UX roles are evolving in the AI era, and why she hires “dot connectors” who can bridge across domains.

If you’re building AI products, managing product development teams, or just trying to stay ahead of how this field is evolving, this conversation offers a clear look into what actually works inside one of the world’s most influential AI product orgs.

To see more of Kelly and her team’s work, check out https://labs.google/