From IdeaTo Impact
Akshay Sharma
Senior Product Manager, Enterprise AI at Avalara
Ex-Microsoft · Ex-EY
I take enterprise AI, cloud and data products from the first requirement to production.
IIT Kharagpur · IIM Kozhikode
- 10+
- years in product
- 11
- products worked on
- $10M+
- annual revenue influenced
- 35%
- fewer stockouts
Agentic AI
Task decomposition, workflow agents, exception triage, human review, audit trails.
GenAI products
AI assistants, copilots, enterprise search, RAG, content generation, summarisation.
AI product management
Use case discovery, ROI sizing, PRDs, model evaluation, adoption metrics, GTM support.
Enterprise AI and governance
Explainability, privacy controls, compliance workflows, governance, risk review.
Building products since 2015
Seven roles, one habit: own the product from the first requirement to the adoption curve.
Senior Product Manager, Avalara
Mar 2025 — Present
Leading AI-enabled tax compliance across AvaTax and Returns, including agentic AI use cases for regulated workflows.
- Apr 2023 — Feb 2025Brane AI / NSL Hub Data and AI Product Manager
Retail ERP with Promo AI and Pricing AI across 461+ stores. Stockouts down 35%.
- Feb 2022 — Apr 2023Microsoft Product Manager
Azure CostIQ. Forecast accuracy up 25%, $10M+ annual revenue influenced.
- Mar 2021 — Feb 2022EY Product Manager
SkillHubAI knowledge platform. Redundant work down 25%.
- May 2019 — Mar 2021Larsen & Toubro Product Manager
Digital transformation and CRM platform. Operating efficiency up 25%.
- Apr 2018 — Jun 2018Robert Bosch Product Manager Intern
Product strategy for smart city and smart campus solutions.
- Mar 2015 — Jun 2017ADP Product Analyst
Tax Credits Services. Report configuration time down 30%.
Products I've helped bring to life
Four flagship products, each with what changed as a result.
Avalara · 2025 — present
AI for tax compliance on AvaTax and Returns
AI-enabled tax compliance product direction for communications, hospitality and alcohol-beverage customers.
- Agentic AI
- Tax compliance
- Enterprise SaaS
Brane AI / NSL Hub · 2023 — 2025
Retail ERP with Promo AI and Pricing AI
An integrated ERP and AI solution for a major Mexican retailer, connecting pricing, promotions, procurement, inventory, POS and warehouses.
- Stockouts down 35%
- Excess stock down 12%
- 461+ stores and 6 warehouses on one platform
Microsoft · 2022 — 2023
Azure CostIQ
The product experience for cloud migration pricing, budgeting and cost governance, used by enterprise teams planning a move to Azure.
- Forecast accuracy up 25%
- Decision time down 20%
- $10M+ annual revenue influenced
EY · 2021 — 2022
SkillHubAI knowledge platform
An AI knowledge platform for reusable asset discovery, proposal acceleration and internal productivity across sales and delivery teams.
- Redundant work down 25%
- Access to reusable assets up 30%
- Proposal preparation time down 20%
Independent products
Products I have built outside my enterprise roles.
The AI Product Playbook
Selected pieces from my LinkedIn newsletter.
From Prompt Engineering to Graph Engineering: How AI Systems Are Growing Up
Every few months, AI seems to invent a new engineering term. First, everyone needed to learn prompt engineering.
Why Your AI Strategy Is Already Obsolete?
For years, the playbook has been simple: add an AI model to your product, and users will pay attention. We’ve all accepted this as the baseline for innovation.
Is AI Hacking You?
Why the Biggest Risk Isn't Smarter AI. It's AI That Finds Shortcuts 19 unauthorized actions.
Podcasts and talks
Mentorship
- 1000+
- professionals mentored
- 5.0
- rating on Preplaced and Topmate
"Crystal clear with approach, identified the right goals that are progressive and would set the stage for long-term value add."
"He listens to our background and experience and suggests what it takes to get there. He has a structured plan based on your knowledge level."
Let's build something meaningful together
Hiring for a senior AI product role, or want to talk about agentic AI and enterprise adoption? I reply fastest on LinkedIn and email.
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