PMs have been facing an existential crisis. It started with the tech layoffs and got worse when Airbnb eliminated the traditional PM role. In the face of AI, is product management dead?
Very well put. With AI, delivering faster will no longer be a core value proposition. The value proposition has to linked to the real customer problem. Imho, many of AI seems still stuck in SISP (Solution in search of problem.
Agreed... and that's where product management is critical. New features shouldn't be based on what's technically possible, but what is valuable to the customer.
Yes, there are the soft skills involved with understanding customers that it takes live people to do. I agree that the human decision making component can't be replaced.
Ravi, and Danny, this is an excellent article that I appreciate. It illustrates something that I have thought for a while now, that skills such as team development and leadership are real underpins to product management that can't be separated from a product manager. While other hard skills can be, and are now, relegated to AI, product managers are now getting focused on the human skills that only they can do.
In addition, there are soft skills related to understanding customers. AI will be able to automate some of the mechanisms of working with people (communication, task management, experiment etc.) to research and build effective products, but there will be a human decision making component that can't be replaced.
I agree with everything that’s being said here - product management isn’t going away. In fact, to a degree, every person in the triad will need to think like and act like a PM. That combined with the attrition in Eng roles will drive more people into product management, along with other macroeconomic factors - I plan to explore that topic in a different post
This article makes sense for companies that value the roles of PMs and are outcome driven. However, I'm not sure if this also applies to companies that are moving towards being more founder led. In such companies, the strategic responsibilities of the PM function are being taken over by other functions such as marketing or operations. In some cases, even the executive team is stepping in to decide what product to build. And if you layer in AI, you can easily set up automated customer feedback pipelines such as NPS, app store reviews, CSAT survey, etc. which can be synthesized by AI to generate product ideas. Such companies don't need traditional PMs anymore, rather they need people to execute on the product, which can be seen as more of TPM or Project Management function. It remains to be seen which way the winds are going to blow on this trend.
It’s interesting to think - on the one hand I think the Eng to PM ratio will increase because PMs will simply be able to get a lot more done with AI. On the other hand, Eng themselves are becoming much more efficient (o3 is top 200 on coding).
I do think teams overall will get much smaller which will impact PM employment opportunities. Maybe instead of a few big companies hiring many PMs it’ll be spread out to many. Or maybe more PMs will become founders since they can now build.
> Maybe instead of a few big companies hiring many PMs it’ll be spread out to many. Or maybe more PMs will become founders since they can now build.
I buy this, I think more companies will have this need and we'll see the rise of the micro companies (<10 people).
I also see a world where more PMs work for more than a single company: It's a trend I've been seeing with "fractional" people a lot. It just makes sense that once someone has scaled themselves enough, they'll be able to work for more than one company. I've done it myself in recent years, and one of the challenges is the context switching and trying to stay on top of activities across all companies, something AI can (and already is) helping with.
Enjoyed putting this one together Ravi - thanks for taking the time :)
I enjoyed it as well!
Very well put. With AI, delivering faster will no longer be a core value proposition. The value proposition has to linked to the real customer problem. Imho, many of AI seems still stuck in SISP (Solution in search of problem.
Agreed... and that's where product management is critical. New features shouldn't be based on what's technically possible, but what is valuable to the customer.
Yes, there are the soft skills involved with understanding customers that it takes live people to do. I agree that the human decision making component can't be replaced.
Ravi, and Danny, this is an excellent article that I appreciate. It illustrates something that I have thought for a while now, that skills such as team development and leadership are real underpins to product management that can't be separated from a product manager. While other hard skills can be, and are now, relegated to AI, product managers are now getting focused on the human skills that only they can do.
In addition, there are soft skills related to understanding customers. AI will be able to automate some of the mechanisms of working with people (communication, task management, experiment etc.) to research and build effective products, but there will be a human decision making component that can't be replaced.
Great post Ravi and Danny!
I agree with everything that’s being said here - product management isn’t going away. In fact, to a degree, every person in the triad will need to think like and act like a PM. That combined with the attrition in Eng roles will drive more people into product management, along with other macroeconomic factors - I plan to explore that topic in a different post
Agreed... I think there is going to be blurring of the lines between roles on product development teams. Looking forward to reading your post!
This article makes sense for companies that value the roles of PMs and are outcome driven. However, I'm not sure if this also applies to companies that are moving towards being more founder led. In such companies, the strategic responsibilities of the PM function are being taken over by other functions such as marketing or operations. In some cases, even the executive team is stepping in to decide what product to build. And if you layer in AI, you can easily set up automated customer feedback pipelines such as NPS, app store reviews, CSAT survey, etc. which can be synthesized by AI to generate product ideas. Such companies don't need traditional PMs anymore, rather they need people to execute on the product, which can be seen as more of TPM or Project Management function. It remains to be seen which way the winds are going to blow on this trend.
It’s interesting to think - on the one hand I think the Eng to PM ratio will increase because PMs will simply be able to get a lot more done with AI. On the other hand, Eng themselves are becoming much more efficient (o3 is top 200 on coding).
I do think teams overall will get much smaller which will impact PM employment opportunities. Maybe instead of a few big companies hiring many PMs it’ll be spread out to many. Or maybe more PMs will become founders since they can now build.
> Maybe instead of a few big companies hiring many PMs it’ll be spread out to many. Or maybe more PMs will become founders since they can now build.
I buy this, I think more companies will have this need and we'll see the rise of the micro companies (<10 people).
I also see a world where more PMs work for more than a single company: It's a trend I've been seeing with "fractional" people a lot. It just makes sense that once someone has scaled themselves enough, they'll be able to work for more than one company. I've done it myself in recent years, and one of the challenges is the context switching and trying to stay on top of activities across all companies, something AI can (and already is) helping with.