Cayhil GrubbsAI Product Manager

I turn manual workflows into AI products teams adopt.

I've shipped a B2B analytics SaaS, a creator-deal platform, an internal ops platform, and a music game. I owned each one from product direction down to the AI inside.

About

I'm an AI product manager focused on internal tools and workflow automation: software that turns manual business processes into reliable, self-serve products. Most recently that meant Almost Friday Media's first full-stack workflow and data platform, which leadership rolled out and the whole team now runs on daily.

I started in operations, doing this work by hand, building media schedules, assembling campaign reports, and making slide decks. So I know firsthand which workflows are worth automating, and what it takes for a tool to actually get adopted by the people who depend on it.

I build with coding agents doing much of the implementation, while I own everything that makes a product real: the problem, the scope, the product decisions, the AI's guardrails, validation, rollout, and the measured results. Careful, reviewable AI is part of what I ship. I'm model-agnostic, and most at home in Codex and Claude.

Selected work

Click any piece to open it

Internal operations platformBuilt & used internally

OpsConsole is the internal platform Almost Friday Media runs on every day. It's a simple console where the operations and leadership team kick off AI-powered campaign work, preview the results before anything goes out, and run 50+ brand deals without touching a spreadsheet.

Leadership rolled it out across sales, social, and account management after a C-suite demo. The team now runs 50+ brand deals on it daily, and I own the roadmap.

Owned discovery to rolloutDaily use, 50+ brand dealsRecap decks: 6+ hrs to ~3 min
B2B YouTube analyticsLive SaaS

A B2B YouTube analytics product I designed, built, and run in production, used daily by operations teams at a major record group to track channel performance, manage rights across 10,000+ channels, catch trends in real time, and generate executive reports in seconds.

Operations specialists across three labels at a major record group use it daily. I am the founder and sole builder, and I run it in production.

Founder and sole builderDaily use at three labelsReports: 30+ min to ~15 sec
Creator deal platformPre-launch

A pre-launch operating system for creator brand deals, built end to end by me as founder and sole builder, with an in-app AI manager that can run a deal from the first brand email through payment.

Every product decision is mine as founder and sole builder: the data model, the interface, the background jobs, and how far the AI is allowed to go.

Founder and sole builderPre-launchEvery AI action reversible
Music gameShipped · playable

A quick music game where you draft a greatest-hits album and find out how well your picks survive the chart rules.

A finished, live game you can play right now at top-the-charts.com. No signup, just pick songs and see your score.

Live and playableNo signup
Client site, self-serve CMSShipped, client-run

A professional site for a chief academic officer in public education, built so she can edit her own copy after launch without calling me. The product work was the content model: what she can change, what she can't, and where that line goes.

She asked to make text updates herself after launch, and she can. Routine copy and photo changes go through a studio she operates alone, with no developer in the loop.

Owner edits it herselfShipped and handed offEditing surface kept narrow

Background

Experience

  • Almost Friday Media, Director, Applied AI & Internal Platforms: own the company's applied-AI strategy, the internal-platform roadmap, and the workflow changes that come with them across sales, social, and account management.
  • Almost Friday Media, Ad Operations & Campaign Coordinator: ran campaign operations by hand, then scoped and shipped OpsConsole and drove its rollout. That work is what the Director role grew out of.
  • ChannelPulse, founder and sole builder: a B2B YouTube analytics SaaS designed, shipped, and run in production, used daily by operations specialists across three labels at a major record group.
  • Night Media, Influencer Talent Coordinator: sourced and managed 60+ brand deals for 15+ creators, and built one of my first AI tools there to generate creator pitch decks.
  • William Morris Endeavor, Celebrity Brand Partnerships Assistant: project-managed high-profile brand deals end to end, coordinating talent, brands, legal, and creative from offer to delivery.
  • On the side: UNVLD, a pre-launch creator-deal platform, plus lighter work like top-the-charts.com.

How I Work

I start with the real workflow: what someone is trying to finish, what slows them down, and where software can take the friction away. My operating belief is simple: a program on my laptop only helps me; a platform helps the whole company.

I build so that non-technical people can actually use what I make: a clean, self-serve interface in front, and underneath, capabilities small and well-documented enough that a coding agent can run them too. That keeps things easy to maintain and extend.

When AI is involved, I keep it grounded and reviewable. It works from real data, a person stays in the loop, and there's a preview before anything goes out, so the people using it trust it.

I prototype and ship with coding agents doing much of the implementation. My toolkit is TypeScript, Python, React, Next.js, FastAPI, Hono, PostgreSQL/Supabase, and Vercel. I direct, review, and validate everything that ships, with whichever AI model fits the job.

Outside Work

Outside of work I'm drawn to music, games, culture, and visual systems. That shows up in the work. I like software with rhythm and a point of view.

I studied Japanese at The Ohio State University, which shaped how I think about language, structure, and getting details right.