Article
The Evolution of Digital Product Teams — A CXO’s Perspective
March 18, 2025
Fifteen years ago, digital product teams didn’t really exist. Companies had IT teams, maybe a digital marketing department, but no one really owned digital products the way they do today. Back then, digital transformation was mostly about launching a website, modernizing outdated systems, or — if you were ahead of the curve — building a mobile app.
Fast forward to today, and product teams are everywhere. Organizations have dedicated VPs of Product, Chief Digital Officers, and entire cross-functional squads. Yet, even with all this structure, execution remains a challenge. Digital transformation has moved from being IT-led to marketing-led, and now product-led. But the shift didn’t happen overnight. Over the last decade and a half, the way companies build, launch, and manage digital products has evolved significantly.
The Early Days: IT & Marketing Figuring It Out (2008–2018)
In the early days of digital product development, most companies didn’t have dedicated product teams. Digital projects were either owned by IT or led by marketing in partnership with external agencies. It was a time of experimentation, and many organizations were making their first real investments in digital products.
A lot of early digital projects were driven by the need to modernize legacy technology. Companies were building their first native mobile apps or redesigning outdated websites. Back then, mobile was still a question mark for many businesses. Some weren’t convinced they needed a mobile presence at all because they weren’t seeing significant traffic from mobile users. The irony? Mobile traffic was low because their web experiences were so bad on mobile devices that customers avoided them altogether.
Since most companies didn’t have internal product teams, they leaned heavily on external partners. Waterfall development was still the norm, meaning long, drawn-out release cycles that often resulted in products that were outdated by the time they launched. There was no agile methodology in place, no iterative development, and certainly no culture of rapid experimentation.
The Shift to Product-Led Organizations (2018–2021)
As companies started to realize the business impact of digital channels, the Chief Digital Officer (CDO) role emerged. For the first time, organizations had senior leaders whose job was to think strategically about digital products. But while the introduction of the CDO was a step in the right direction, it wasn’t a perfect solution. Many CDOs had a seat at the table but lacked direct control over product development teams, budgets, and execution.
During this time, agile methodologies took hold, and investment in Digital Experience Platforms (DXPs) exploded. Companies were adopting design thinking, embracing customer-centricity, and rethinking how digital products were built. The goal was to move from large, one-off digital projects to ongoing, iterative development. However, execution often lagged behind strategy. Many organizations struggled with cross-functional collaboration, and silos between design, engineering, and marketing still existed.
COVID-19 and the Digital Acceleration (2021–2023)
Then COVID-19 hit, and digital transformation accelerated at a pace no one had predicted. Practically overnight, businesses had to shift their entire operations online. Companies that had been planning multi-year digital transformation roadmaps were suddenly expected to deliver in months.
To meet the demand, organizations went on a hiring spree. They built internal product teams from scratch, often bringing in top-tier engineering, design, and product talent. The market was booming, and companies were willing to pay premium salaries to get the right people in the door.
But by 2023, the momentum slowed. Interest rates rose, funding became tighter, and many companies that had rapidly expanded their product teams found themselves struggling to sustain their velocity. Hiring great people didn’t automatically translate into faster product development. Execution remained an issue, and leaders started asking hard questions about how to improve team efficiency and maintain momentum with fewer resources.
Where We Are Now: The Need for Greater Velocity
Today, most companies have established product teams. But having a product team isn’t the same as building great digital products. Many organizations still struggle with slow release cycles, lack of differentiation, and inefficient collaboration between design and engineering. The companies that are succeeding today aren’t just hiring great people — they’re evolving how they build.
The shift that’s happening now is from thinking about product development as a series of projects to treating it as an ongoing capability. The best product teams are embedded within the business, operate cross-functionally, and work in continuous cycles of learning and iteration.
The Future: AI, MESH, and Adaptive Product Teams
So, what’s next? AI is going to fundamentally change how digital products are built. But it’s not about replacing people — it’s about making teams faster, smarter, and more adaptive. AI-powered automation will streamline workflows, help teams identify bottlenecks, and provide data-driven insights that inform product decisions in real time.
At Livefront, we believe the next evolution of digital product development isn’t just about technology — it’s about how teams work. Our MESH model (Motions, Explorations, Standards, Hospitalities) is designed to embed experienced product, design, and engineering experts directly within client teams to accelerate execution, improve collaboration, and transfer knowledge. It’s not staff augmentation — it’s true partnership.
The best companies of the future won’t just have the best talent; they’ll have the best systems for building and iterating on digital products. AI will be part of that system. So will adaptive methodologies that allow organizations to respond to change in real time.
Final Thoughts
The evolution of digital product teams has been a journey — from IT-led projects to product-led strategies, from slow waterfall releases to agile, iterative development. Now, we’re entering the next phase: AI-enhanced, embedded, and truly adaptive product teams.
Companies that embrace this shift will outpace their competitors. The question isn’t whether AI and embedded expertise will change digital product development — it’s how fast organizations will adapt to the new reality.
If you’re thinking about the next step in your digital transformation, let’s talk. We don’t just build — we help you win.
