Artificial intelligence isn’t just reshaping industries — it’s redefining how organizations build, prioritize, and deliver products. Few people understand that transformation better than Jason Riggs, a veteran technology executive whose new book, The MACH-10 PM: AI-Powered Product Management at Hypersonic Speed, has climbed to #1 New Release in Product Management and Business Technology Innovation on Amazon.
Riggs argues that the fusion of human judgment and machine intelligence will define the next decade of product leadership — and that most teams are unprepared for the speed ahead.
Q: What motivated you to create The MACH-10 PM?
For years I’ve led teams across hardware, software, and AI-driven systems, and I kept seeing the same tension. Product managers were buried under tools, data, and frameworks but still lacked actionable insight. When generative AI arrived, it felt like a once-in-a-generation opportunity — and a test.
We could use AI to eliminate friction, or we could let it amplify the noise. The MACH-10 PM is a response to that challenge. It’s a framework for operating at the new speed of innovation — what I call “hypersonic product management” — without losing the human context that gives technology meaning.
Q: You describe AI as a leverage engine for PMs. How should leaders think about that?
AI gives us asymmetric leverage. It compresses cycles that used to take weeks into minutes — customer research, competitive analysis, even product experimentation. But leverage only works when you understand what to apply it to.
Too many teams automate the trivial. The future PM uses AI not to replace thinking but to amplify judgment. The skill isn’t prompt engineering; it’s meta-reasoning — knowing when to trust the model, when to override it, and when to combine multiple systems to triangulate truth.
That’s the shift from “tool user” to “system orchestrator.”
Q: How is the role of the product manager evolving in this AI-first environment?
The traditional PM was a translator between business, engineering, and design. The new PM is a conductor of intelligence. They have to understand how AI models perceive, learn, and bias information — and still make human-centric decisions.
It’s not enough to know your customer; you have to know how your algorithms know your customer. Product leaders will increasingly own the ethics and governance of AI as much as they own roadmaps. In a world of autonomous agents and data feedback loops, stewardship becomes as critical as strategy.
Q: Your framework combines lessons from consumer tech, enterprise transformation, and applied AI. What’s the common thread?
Speed. Every environment I’ve worked in taught a different dimension of velocity. Consumer tech showed me emotional speed — how markets and narratives evolve faster than product cycles. Enterprise transformation taught operational speed — how to scale innovation through process. AI brings cognitive speed — systems that can sense, adapt, and predict in real time.
MACH-10 PM integrates those dimensions into a unified operating system for leadership. It’s not about building faster products; it’s about building faster organizations.
Q: You write that “AI will reveal weak leadership faster than it replaces it.” What do you mean by that?
AI exposes gaps. If you rely on hierarchy, process, or guesswork, it will surface those flaws immediately. When a machine can analyze user sentiment or forecast churn more accurately than a committee, the only thing left is leadership quality.
The future belongs to those who can synthesize human values with machine-scale insight. AI doesn’t make mediocre leaders better — it makes great ones exponential. That’s both empowering and uncomfortable, depending on where you stand.
Q: You often say “Out-leverage, not out-work.” How does that philosophy apply in AI-driven teams?
Human effort is finite; computational leverage isn’t. The goal isn’t to work harder but to design systems that compound learning. A team that knows how to pair domain expertise with adaptive AI will outperform one that simply adds headcount.
Out-leveraging means using automation to clear noise so humans can focus on abstraction, intuition, and storytelling — the parts machines still can’t touch. It’s how you reach hypersonic productivity without burning people out.
Q: What’s next for the MACH-10 ecosystem?
The book is just the anchor. We’re developing companion toolkits, a workshop series, and an ongoing newsletter that translates the frameworks into practice. The vision is to create a discipline around AI-powered product leadership — something that sits between strategy, design, and data science.
Ultimately, MACH-10 isn’t about technology adoption. It’s about designing human systems that can operate at the pace of machine intelligence.
Q: Where can readers learn more?
The MACH-10 PM: AI-Powered Product Management at Hypersonic Speed is available now on Amazon in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover. Additional resources, downloads, and frameworks are available at mach10pm.com.
Riggs sums it up simply: “AI doesn’t erase the art of product management — it raises the standard. The leaders who combine speed with soul will define the next era.”
Jason Riggs Author Bio
Jason Riggs is a technology executive and author of The MACH-10 PM: AI-Powered Product Management at Hypersonic Speed. He’s held leadership roles at GoPro, Qualcomm, and PAR Technology and now serves as Chief Commercial and Product Officer at Audivi AI.
Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FSP1Z1C4
MACH-10 PM Website: https://mach10pm.com/
Finding Speed with Soul: Jason Riggs on the Human Side of AI and Product Leadership
Vocal.Media Feature — October 30, 2025
When Jason Riggs left a boardroom late one night, laptop glowing with yet another unread backlog of data and dashboards, he realized something had broken. His team was moving faster than ever — but not necessarily forward.
“I kept seeing brilliant people lose themselves to the noise,” he recalls. “We were automating everything except our own clarity.”
That moment became the seed for his book, The MACH-10 PM: AI-Powered Product Management at Hypersonic Speed. The title has since climbed to #1 New Release in Product Management and Business Technology Innovation on Amazon, but for Riggs, it’s more than a bestseller. It’s a manifesto on how to stay human in a world obsessed with acceleration.
The Spark Behind MACH-10
Riggs spent years leading teams in tech and enterprise companies, from fast-moving consumer products to complex AI platforms. The patterns were always the same: endless meetings, new frameworks every quarter, and leaders burning out while chasing “efficiency.”
“When AI entered the scene, people assumed it would fix everything,” he says. “I saw the opposite. Without intention, AI just amplifies the chaos. What we needed wasn’t another tool — it was a new way to think.”
That realization became The MACH-10 PM, a playbook built around his core philosophy: Speed with Soul. It’s the idea that velocity means nothing without vision, and automation means nothing without empathy.
Speed Without Soul Is Just Motion
MACH-10 is 7,600 miles per hour, the edge of hypersonic flight. For Riggs, it’s a metaphor for modern work. “We’re all flying faster than our instruments were designed for,” he explains. “The challenge is learning to navigate at that altitude without losing ourselves.”
He believes AI, when used intentionally, can restore creativity instead of draining it. “If AI can clear the noise, humans can focus on the magic — strategy, imagination, intuition. That’s the soul part.”
The Moment the Light Came On
During the pandemic, Riggs began sketching what he now calls “the hypersonic model of product management.” It wasn’t meant to be a book. It was an attempt to help his teams make sense of the blur — how to operate at high speed without burning out or losing meaning.
“I was writing notes for myself at first,” he says. “Then people started asking for them. Eventually I realized it wasn’t just a framework; it was therapy for modern leaders.”
By the time The MACH-10 PM was finished, it had evolved into something more than a manual. It was a mindset: lead with intelligence, execute with intention, and protect the soul of the work at all costs.
AI as Mirror, Not Savior
Riggs sees AI not as a savior, but a mirror. “It reflects the quality of your thinking back at you,” he says. “If your strategy is shallow, AI will make it faster — and shallower.”
That’s why he believes product managers, and leaders in general, need to understand AI at a human level first. “It’s not about prompts or models; it’s about awareness. AI will expose your gaps. But if you use it right, it becomes the greatest amplifier of creativity and clarity we’ve ever had.”
The Lesson Every PM Learns Eventually
One of the recurring themes in Riggs’s book is a simple mantra: Out-leverage, not out-work.
“The hardest lesson for ambitious people is that more effort doesn’t always equal more impact,” he says. “AI gives us leverage if we know how to use it — but only if we stop equating busyness with value. The goal isn’t to grind harder; it’s to think deeper and move with purpose.”
That message resonates far beyond product management. Many readers have written to say the book helped them find direction in their own creative or leadership journeys. “That’s the best part,” Riggs admits. “It’s not just about tech. It’s about meaning.”
What’s Next for MACH-10
With the book’s success, Riggs is expanding the MACH-10 ecosystem into toolkits, workshops, and a newsletter focused on practical application. But he’s clear about the mission: it’s not to build a fanbase, it’s to build a philosophy.
“I don’t want followers. I want leaders who operate with speed and conscience,” he says. “If we can build that culture — one that moves fast without losing humanity — we’ll create better products, better companies, and better lives.”
Why It Matters
The world is addicted to acceleration. The faster the tools become, the less time we seem to have. Riggs believes the antidote is awareness. “Technology should amplify what makes us human, not erase it,” he says. “If we can hold on to that, then the faster we go, the more meaning we create.”
That’s Speed with Soul in its purest form.
Where to Find the Book
The MACH-10 PM: AI-Powered Product Management at Hypersonic Speed is available on Amazon in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover. Readers can explore free resources and frameworks at mach10pm.com.
Riggs sums it up simply: “Speed doesn’t have to kill soul. The future belongs to those who move fast — and stay human.”
Jason Riggs: The Future of Product Management Isn’t Faster — It’s Smarter
BigNewsNetwork Feature — October 30, 2025 (PM)
Jason Riggs has never been interested in chasing trends. “Everyone talks about speed,” he says. “But speed without direction just means you crash faster.”
Riggs is a longtime technology executive turned author whose new book, The MACH-10 PM: AI-Powered Product Management at Hypersonic Speed, has already landed at #1 New Release in Product Management and Business Technology Innovation on Amazon. It’s a field guide for the next era of leadership — one defined by artificial intelligence, exponential pace, and the humans trying to keep up with both.
But Riggs insists it’s not really a book about AI. It’s about us.
The Moment It Clicked
“I was leading teams that were doing everything right on paper,” he says. “More tools, more dashboards, more data. Yet we were still spinning in circles.”
That’s when the light went on. The problem wasn’t effort — it was leverage. “We were optimizing the wrong things,” Riggs says. “Everyone was working harder, but nobody was thinking faster.”
The MACH-10 PM was born out of that realization: that the future of product management would belong to the leaders who know how to out-leverage, not out-work.
What MACH-10 Really Means
MACH-10 is 7,600 miles per hour — the edge of hypersonic flight. For Riggs, it’s a metaphor for modern business. “The world doesn’t move linearly anymore. It jumps. If you’re using old frameworks, you’re already behind.”
His concept of “Speed with Soul” sits at the heart of the book. It’s about operating at extreme velocity without burning out the people doing the work. “AI isn’t the hero,” he says. “Clarity is. AI just helps you get there faster.”
How AI Changes the Game
Riggs describes AI as a mirror that exposes truth. “It won’t make bad leaders better,” he says. “It’ll just show everyone how bad they were faster.”
The best product managers, he argues, will be those who can pair machine intelligence with human judgment. “You can’t prompt your way into insight. You still have to think. The job now is to know when to trust the model and when to trust your gut.”
That blend of precision and instinct is what separates high performers from high output. One moves the company forward; the other just moves the mouse.
From the Boardroom to the Bookstore
Before becoming an author, Riggs spent years leading teams at major tech and enterprise firms, helping to modernize legacy systems and build AI-powered platforms for fast-moving industries.
“Every stop taught me a different kind of speed,” he says. “Consumer tech showed me how culture can outpace product. Enterprise tech showed me how structure can kill it. AI showed me how fast machines can learn — and how slow people can be to change.”
The book distills those lessons into a single framework for modern leadership. It’s half philosophy, half field guide, and all attitude.
The Real Message
Riggs doesn’t sugarcoat the AI revolution. “Most people are still approaching AI like it’s a novelty or a trick. It’s not. It’s the new electricity. And if you don’t adapt, you’ll be the candle.”
But he’s equally quick to remind readers that humanity is the multiplier. “Technology doesn’t innovate. People do. AI just clears the runway so you can finally take off.”
He calls The MACH-10 PM a wake-up call for product leaders who want to scale clarity, creativity, and conscience — not just code.
Building a Movement, Not a Brand
Since launch, Riggs has been expanding the MACH-10 ecosystem with toolkits, workshops, and a newsletter focused on helping leaders operationalize “Speed with Soul.” But he’s careful not to turn it into self-help theater.
“This isn’t about personal branding or being the ‘AI whisperer of the week,’” he says. “It’s about designing teams that can move at hypersonic speed without losing their humanity.”
The mission is simple: teach people how to go faster and care more.
On Leadership in the AI Era
Ask Riggs what separates good leaders from great ones, and he doesn’t hesitate. “Good leaders know what to build. Great ones know why. AI can tell you what. It will never tell you why.”
He pauses. “That’s where the soul comes in. The minute you outsource that, you stop leading.”
Where to Learn More
The MACH-10 PM: AI-Powered Product Management at Hypersonic Speed is available on Amazon in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover. For toolkits, frameworks, and upcoming workshops, visit mach10pm.com.
Riggs leaves readers with one final line that sums up his entire philosophy:
“Speed isn’t the enemy. Mindless speed is. Learn the difference, and you’ll never get left behind.”
