Interview: Tomer Cohen, chief product officer, LinkedIn | Computer Weekly

Exploring new opportunities

There have been many changes since Cohen joined the company. LinkedIn now has more than one billion members. The types of engagement on the platform have changed, too. He says people use the app as a way to grow their careers and their businesses.

“Now you make a living on LinkedIn talking about your craft,” he says. “There’s been an evolution over time. It’s been built brick by brick. But in many ways, it was the idea that LinkedIn can be your superpower – and my job, as CPO, is to help you expose that superpower and make it simple to understand how LinkedIn can help you achieve your outcomes.”

Cohen simplified the product as he developed the platform’s mobile experience. Then, as he looked to encourage engagement, he focused on helping people share knowledge easily and build a community. This decade-long experience has involved helping LinkedIn transform from what was perceived as a job site into something deeper.

“LinkedIn can be your superpower – and my job, as CPO, is to help you expose that superpower and make it simple to understand how LinkedIn can help you achieve your outcomes”

Tomer Cohen, LinkedIn

“Jobs are a big part of LinkedIn, and rightfully so,” he says. “But the idea that you can do more on the platform grew over the last decade. When you ask members today how they think of LinkedIn, many will say, ‘It’s my daily work tool.’ That wasn’t the case in the past, and I’m proud of how we’ve made LinkedIn a productivity tool that can help you throughout the day versus something transactional you use every few years when you’re looking for jobs.”

Cohen points to some important product developments. His team spent time and resources honing the individual feed experience. They also focused on developing pages to allow organisations to create professional experiences on LinkedIn that focus more on updates and content, and less on basic information.

These product developments have been tailored by gradually learning what works for members. Cohen says a successful CPO thinks carefully about how to turn a company’s vision into a product strategy. He gives the example of individual feed experiences at LinkedIn and how his team explored how the feed could help people create new opportunities.

“CPOs must translate the company’s vision into value and develop the product strategy behind that process. So we measure success by things like, ‘Was a person able to build influence? Were they able to get a job? Are they getting engagements?’”

He gives an example from his professional life: “I met one of my professors from Stanford six months ago, and he said, ‘I started sharing things regularly on LinkedIn because somebody told me this would be a good way to get my ideas out. Now I’m getting approached for speaking engagements.’”

Collapsing the stack

Cohen moved into the CPO role during the coronavirus pandemic. He says the fresh working styles that boomed, such as hybrid and remote approaches, are still creating an impact today.

“Suddenly, you can get a job anywhere because you can work from anywhere,” he says. “That’s a big change. We’re seeing unprecedented change in terms of employment. The time constant of change is much greater than the time constant of response, which means you don’t have the luxury of having playbooks to adapt to the world of work. And right now, whether or not professionals are thinking of changing their role, their job is changing.”

Cohen refers to LinkedIn research that suggests 70% of the skills required for jobs today will change by 2030. “That’s staggering,” he says. “That’s just four-and-a-half years, and that’s not a lot of time. As CPO, I must think about how to help members navigate change successfully.”

One of the key accelerators for change is artificial intelligence (AI). Cohen says technology always generates new solutions to overcome challenges at a personal and professional level, especially in a big business like LinkedIn. However, he suggests the scale of transformation with AI is different, and people must adjust quickly and effectively.

Cohen refers to an example from his department. Full Stack Builders (FSB) launched last year and uses AI in product development at LinkedIn. Rather than a series of discrete tasks, such as designing and engineering, product development is undertaken by one professional assisted by AI services, including tools that deal with coding assistance and product management.

“We have an opportunity to collapse the stack back and say, ‘Hey, development requires an idea and creativity, but it also needs other things like, how do you code your product, how do you spec it, and how do you design it?’ We see with FSB that many things can be done with AI, allowing you to push out the frontier of product development,” he says.

“When you zoom out, we empower people to build what they want. And, in our organisation, we’re allowing people to start doing that work. We’re experimenting with the idea that you can now work full stack. So, you’re not hired only for a specific role. Instead, you can work across the experience to build a product, which was not the case before.”

Instead of working with between five and 10 teams in multiple functions, a full-stack product developer uses emerging technology to collapse a complex, multi-disciplinary process into a streamlined activity completed by one person. The company powers this approach with proprietary technology, Microsoft services and a range of large language models.

“Now I can use AI to say, ‘Hey, here’s my spec. This is what I want to build. Can you create it for me? Can you design it for me?’ And then, from design, you can take it to code. You can have a full design. The technology empowers our people to build without the friction in the middle of the process.”

Implementing agentic services

Cohen says this AI-enabled approach aims to build agility into the development process to create new, high-quality products. He recognises introducing emerging technology can involve a significant culture shift for professionals who use these tools daily. However, at LinkedIn, using AI must be par for the course.

“It’s everyone’s job,” he says. “We have an incredible IT team. Their job is partly to bring the best tools to LinkedIn that meet our norms and governance. Our developers are excited to ensure they’re always looking for the best tools out there right now. At the same time, they’re ensuring those tools are part of our DNA – that they’re trustworthy, there are no privacy and security concerns, and they work well within our stack.”

We’re experimenting with the idea that you can now work full stack. So, you’re not hired only for a specific role. Instead, you can work across the experience to build a product

As LinkedIn continues to use AI to hone its internal working practices and external services, what will these advances mean for the company and its members? Cohen suggests the endpoint is personalisation. Over the next 24 months, he expects the company to develop more tailored tools for users.

“What you need from LinkedIn is different from what I need,” he says. “So, how can you give someone the best, personalised experience when they open the app? That capability requires us to build much faster and with higher quality, so you’re getting the experience you want rather than the general experience we’re building across our app.”

In late 2024, LinkedIn launched its first AI agent to help recruiters on the platform work more effectively. Hiring Assistant is designed to assume multiple recruitment tasks, from managing administrative tasks to sourcing and engaging with candidates. Cohen says one of the reasons he’s in the UK is to help launch the service. He says these early explorations show the potential power of agentic AI.

“With that agentic experience, we can go market segment by segment, and you’ll have an agent to complete work on your behalf,” he says. “The AI is doing everything – finding, sourcing, reaching out and vetting candidates. People using the technology already see between 15% and 47% efficiency gains. This technology is just making work more efficient.”