From L'Oréal's audacious AI beauty assistant to Marty Cagan's masterclass on the product operating model, this one-day event proved one thing: the SaaS + AI era is here. 

And the winning companies are building, iterating, and shipping at startup speed, even inside century-old enterprises.

If you missed it (or simply want to relive the day), here is a roundup of highlights.

How to embark on your AI transformation journey | Todd Olson, Pendo CEO and Co-founder

Pendo CEO and Co-founder Todd Olson opened PNDMx London with the same message that's been echoing all year: companies can't just bolt AI onto legacy systems and call it transformation. They need to understand how humans and agents interact with their products.

Now, over 400 companies are lining up to use Pendo Agent Analytics to do this—up from 70 design partners.

This first-of-its-kind solution is now available in open beta, and product teams are using this to understand conversations between users and AI agents, and surface insights into user needs, frustrations, and reactions in real time.

Agent Analytics gives you critical insights and the tools to act on them, like: 

  • Rage prompts and other KPIs to help you identify moments of user frustration with AI responses.
  • Dashboards that prove agentic impact across multiple user interfaces (like chat, voice, embedded) so you can see what’s working.
  • Suggested prompts, embedded directly within agents, to guide users toward more successful AI interactions.

Agent Analytics is just one piece of Pendo’s AI innovation. Todd also demoed Agent Mode, Pendo’s agentic interface that surfaces insights, creates visualizations, and even pulls in customer feedback—so you can answer critical questions without manual digging.

To wrap up the opening keynote, Todd introduced Pendo Predict: a predictive analytics tool that connects Pendo’s product usage data with other business data (like CRM information). This way, teams big and small can proactively identify customers at risk of churn and take prompt action to retain them. 

With over 30 use cases already in production, Predict is extending the power of Pendo data to other teams, even if they don’t have dedicated data science resources. Learn more about Predict, and explore everything in Pendo’s Autumn ‘25 Release. 

Customer panels: Industry leaders share what’s working in their AI transformation journey

Attendees heard from two customer panels about what they’ve learned on their AI journeys. 

First up, Mark Bulling, EVP, Innovation and Prototyping @ Choreograph (WPP Media) and Nicholas Elias, Global head of CRM @ HSBC joined Todd Olson on stage. 

Mark explained how giving 40,000 media professionals basic AI assistance drove a massive increase in organic adoption. Their approach: use the right tool for the right problem, keep humans in control, and experiment relentlessly. Most companies abandon experiments due to low success rates, but that's exactly why you need to fail fast and learn quickly.

Next, Hélène Passignani, Senior Product Marketing Manager - Digital Adoption @ Egencia (Amex GBT) and Ben Wilson, Director of Experience Design @ Sage joined Pendo’s SVP of Product, Nichole Mace. 

Hélène talked about using Pendo's in-app messaging to hit their monthly booking target in three days (versus a projected one month). 

Ben also shared staggering results from guides. Sage achieved a 1,000% improvement in adoption through embedded guides and analytics playback, showing users exactly how much time and money they'd saved. 

Moving to the product operating model | Marty Cagan, Partner @ Silicon Valley Product Group

After a coffee break, Marty Cagan gathered attendees back together to deliver a masterclass on why most product teams are stuck in the project model—and how to break free.

The traditional approach focuses on outputs: shipping features on dates. But there’s a problem: only 15% of features actually move the needle because stakeholders pick features based on perceived impact, without solving actual problems.

The SVPG product operating model does the opposite. Instead of feature factories, you get outcome-driven teams who:

  • Choose the right problems to solve through clear product strategy (not roadmaps)
  • Discover better solutions through rapid prototyping and testing
  • Deliver continuously with small, frequent releases

Marty emphasized that product leaders (not individual teams) should decide which problems to solve. Instead, empower teams to find the best solutions to assigned problems.

Shifting to the product operating model requires upskilling PMs to have high agency, strong judgment, and excellent collaboration skills. It requires product leaders who coach rather than command. And it requires accepting uncertainty, especially in AI, where outcomes can’t be determined until the feature is shipped and measured.

Want to go deeper on the product operating model? SVPG’s Christian Idiodi will be speaking at Pendomonium 2026. Get tickets today.

Reinventing a global icon | Romain Dardour, Head of Product @ L'Oréal

To wrap up the day, Romain Dardour closed PNDMx London out with the story of Beauty Genius, L'Oréal's first AI beauty assistant—and how a 116-year-old company learned to move like a startup.

Their customers had decision paralysis, feeling overwhelmed by beauty choices. To fix this,  L’oréal built an AI assistant to help users navigate sensitive topics (like hair loss, acne, and makeup application) they may feel embarrassed to discuss with humans.

Building Beauty Genius required a complete reset, like:

  • New meeting structures: Weekly UI reviews, cross-functional scrums, and dedicated legal calls on AI compliance.
  • New development approach: Observation, experimentation, and adaptation instead of predictable sprints.
  • New metrics: Optimizing input metrics (like latency) that impact output metrics (like retention).

The results speak for themselves. Beauty Genius launched as L'Oréal's first three-star digital product, and the approach has since influenced other teams across the company.

Join us for Pendomonium 2026

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us in London—your questions, insights, and energy made this event unforgettable.

Can't get enough? Pendomonium 2026 is coming to Raleigh, NC next March, and it's shaping up to be our biggest event yet. Get your early bird tickets now before prices go up.