Human Interface | Strategic Product & AI Direction

Teams bring me in to observe and define direction.

I study products, meetings, workflows, customer behavior, complexity, and friction - then help companies identify what users actually care about, where complexity is unnecessary, and how intelligence changes the product experience over the next 1–5 years.

Two decades in New York finance taught me how to simplify complex systems and surface clarity inside overloaded products. That same thinking now applies across fintech, energy, enterprise software, and AI-era platforms.

The problem is rarely just design. It’s alignment.

The Intelligence Gap

TODAY

Most software is still dumb.

Users hunt through dashboards, menus, widgets, and workflows trying to find what matters.

Teams default to the “buffet approach” - continually adding features, panels, and tools, mistaking more options for intelligence.

But complexity rarely creates more value.

It usually creates more friction.

FRANKENAPP

Bolting on AI ≠ intelligence.

Teams often think they’ve “solved” AI by adding: chatbots, copilots, assistant panels and “smart” search layers

But real intelligence changes what the product is - not what it has.

Put AI into a car and you get an intelligent vehicle
Put AI into a robot and you get an adaptive machine
Put AI into your product - what does it become?

CLARITY

Less is still
more.

A truly intelligent product knows what matters to each user - reducing searching, interaction, and unnecessary complexity.

Intelligent systems increasingly understand intent, context, behavior, timing, and relevance - surfacing the right information before users need to search for it.

The goal isn't a product with AI. It's a product that is intelligent.

Where Products Are Heading

Somewhere in the next decade, products will shift toward agent-to-agent ecosystems - systems that automate decisions, anticipate intent, and operate across workflows with minimal human input.

Most teams aren’t built for this yet. They’re still designing screens, not systems. Features, not intelligence.

I help organizations navigate that transition - integrating intelligence into today’s products while helping define what comes next. Clarifying what stays human, what becomes agent-driven, and how platforms evolve across quarters, not sprints.

Case Studies

Financial Platform

Enterprise systems for capital markets and risk-driven decisions.

Energy & Infrastructure

Operational intelligence for distributed solar and asset networks.

Research & Intelligence

Systems that surface insight, not just data, at institutional scale.

Fantastic people and teams we’ve been lucky to work with

How I Work

I turn ambiguity into direction. Companies bring me in when their product future is unclear - when intelligence is changing the category, the roadmap is crowded, and leadership needs something defensible to align around and invest in.

That might mean preparing a legacy platform for what comes next, reframing a product strategy around intelligence, or defining the future-state experience that makes the path forward obvious across the organization. What they get is always the same: a North Star the team believes in, and the clarity to move on it.

Strategic Retainer.

$12,000/month

An ongoing partnership for product leaders who need consistent clarity and direction - typically 12–15 hours per week.

I help refine the product's trajectory, pressure-test high-stakes decisions, review work in progress, and produce future-state screens when the team needs to see what's next. The result: a product that evolves with structure, momentum, a clear sense of where it's going.

Deliverables

Future-state screens

Architecture evolution

Roadmap pressure-testing

AI integration playbook

Decision memos

Product narrative updates

Product Clarity Sprint.

$25,000 / 3 weeks

A focused engagement for organizations that need a defensible product direction - fast.

Three weeks to step back, diagnose where the product actually is, and produce the systems, narrative, and future-state screens leadership needs to align around and invest in. Built for moments when the next move can't wait.

Deliverables

Future-state systems

Product narrative

Executive alignment artifacts

AI opportunity mapping

Architecture direction

Strategic flows

Some teams start with a Sprint. Others bring me in as the product takes shape. Either works - I keep the roster small on purpose.

CREATING IN THE AGE OF AI

When creation is a commodity
what matters is what makes a difference.

About

I'm Cire — pronounced "sire." For over two decades I've helped founders, product leaders, and Fortune-level teams find direction inside complex products. I started on Wall Street and later built studios in Hong Kong and Singapore, working at the intersection of design, data, and large-scale platforms.

I've shaped or restructured more than 650 applications — from onboarding systems and trading tools to research platforms, dashboards, and AI-enabled workflows. Most were already in motion when I arrived. Some were stalled. All of them needed someone who could see the system, name what mattered, and define where it was heading.

That's still the work. Now the question is how intelligence changes it.

A few travel photos

Cire Gearhart

Strategic Product & AI Direction

cire@humaninterface.com

When I'm not working on products, I'm chasing down the remaining 330 countries and territories with my partner (151 so far). I tend to follow things all the way through - whether that's a country list, a novel, or a product that needs to find its direction before it scales.

Outside of that: interior and product design, lowbrow art, classic cars, bespoke gin, speakeasies, writing novels, producing electronica, photography.

— Health, experience, friendships. Not things.