The Future of Product Management in an AI World
Why the human elements of PM work matter more than ever
I love product management. To me it is the best of all the fun parts of business.
The product manager role spans tech, engineering and development, design, strategy, marketing, sales, support and more.
I am going to insert the inevitable Venn diagram here just for kicks to highlight where it sits, at least now, in the business.
This isn’t a perfect Venn of product management - but it gets the idea across.
Why product management?
Insert all the product manager memes here.
In all seriousness, the product manager role, in my experience, helps drive meaningful business outcomes while ensuring customer experience is front and center and advocated for all the way.
I won’t belabor here all the philosophy behind product management as this is covered extremely well by the top thought leaders in product.
I will share a few resources here that I think are valuable for anyone interested in what I would consider ‘good’ product management. Sorry if your resource isn’t here, as there are too many to call out. In future newsletters and posts, I promise to link to more.
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This newsletter helped me go from a newbie PM to one that now feels much more confident. Read Lenny’s Newsletter and listen to the podcast. It aids in removing impostor syndrome and helps you be better. Thank you
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Marty is known in the product world as a sage and the wisdom that he shares in his books and blog has helped elevate the understanding of this unique role.
Teresa Torres’s Continuous Discovery Habits
Teresa makes customer discovery fun. When done right, in my opinion, and those that know me know I lean into this, customer discovery is one of the most important parts of product management. ‘Know thy customer’ is one of the product management commandments, didn’t you know?
has evangelized customer discovery more than anyone else I’ve known about. Get the book and read the blog or daily newsletter, .
I’m going to leave it at three for now.
Product management as a philosophy
If you think about product management as a philosophy, it is this: help solve problems for someone.
Improving a product’s design, load time, and efficiency could give someone more valuable time back in their day so they can go spend that time doing other things in the world. Volunteering, spending time with others, and whatever else they value.
Even with all the AI buzz, humans still do business with other humans.
Where is this whole product management thing going now with AI?
I don’t think anyone really knows yet.
People have some guesses.
One person that has some widely published guesses that are well thought out is Claire Vo. Claire gave a talk and the topic was product management is dead. Here is a link to the video and a blog post with slides.
The overall premise of what Claire talks about is something I agree with 100%. The traditional way of doing things will be replaced in the future with a whole new way of doing things.
Yes, that is an oversimplification, however, if you think about it, AI as a copilot and productivity tool, is a very real thing and is possible right now.
Imagine what it is going to be like 2-5+ years from now.
Will the product manager's role shift to something else?
Perhaps, but perhaps not. There are going to be many positive changes such as an increase in capacity and bandwidth not only for product managers but also for most knowledge workers.
You can become an AI powered product manager now.
Part of why I re-launched Progress Forge is to talk about, share, and promote this inflection point that is happening now.
Am I being overly optimistic about the impact of AI on product management? I might be, however, since I’ve started using it over a year and a half ago in my role day to day, it has increased my capacity and allowed me to focus on the more fun aspect of product management, getting to ‘know thy customer’ and collaborate more deeply with my human counterparts.
Is now a good time to get into product management?
This brings me back to my original starting point in this post. I love product management. Primarily because there is so much depth to be uncovered in the various ‘problem space’ you can exist in as a product manager.

Approximately ninety percent of the iceberg is underwater. The top ten percent is what you see.
A quick study of the product development life cycle (PDLC) will indicate that in the preliminary stages of the PDLC is the ~10% of the iceberg while 90% is the middle and later stages.

With the changes in product management and adjacent teams inevitable, is now a good time to still get into product management?
I think so, yes.
For me, what drew me in originally to product management, was accidental to be honest.
Having worked in various roles throughout my career spanning the technical side and business side, I realized as I shared before in the earlier Venn diagram product management is a cross section of many of these pieces.
Realizing this, I jumped into the role and found it was indeed the cross-section it is purported to be. And the best part? It is the most fun part of all the various pieces of the puzzle.
With AI copilots, rapid MVP prototyping, and agents that can and will automate many mundane things, what impact will this have on the career of a product manager and similar roles?
No one knows for certain - but as shared earlier with Claire’s perspective, AI will create empowered product teams.
Businesses still need outcomes. Customers still need problems solved. Human interaction is still truly relevant and important, so yes, product management is still a good path to consider.
There are some great articles on the fundamentals of what makes a great product manager and how to get into product management. These definitions and the path will shift and change over time.
Where do we go from here?
The future of product management is exciting. There won’t be a dull moment in the next 2-5+ years.
While AI will augment and enhance our capabilities, the human elements of product management empathy, strategic thinking, and cross-functional leadership will become even more valuable.
Whether you are a seasoned PM or someone that is interested in the field, I believe based on all this that embracing and learning how to bridge the gap between AI capabilities and human-centricity will be key to success.
I’m curious to hear your perspectives on this topic. Where do you think this is all going? How do you see the role evolving?