My take on how AI changes product work

Like all product people, I'm trying to figure out where AI takes my role and how I can keep growing my impact. Here are my thoughts and principles I try to work with. Things are moving fast so this might not be as relevant five years from now when we are all unemployed and the robots grow our food while we sit under a tree, but - let's make some assumptions.

Firstly, AI is not a replacement for talking to users, and it is not a replacement for talking to your team. These remain the two highest-value things you do. That hasn't changed. So keep getting out of the building, distill the learnings for your team, and see what they think.

Here is what has changed, and how you should adapt.

1. Velocity is the new normal

AI drastically reduces the time required for execution. Activities that used to be time-sinks are now almost instant, meaning you can do more of them:

• User Interview Preparation: You can generate interview scripts, simulate personas to practice against, and brainstorm deliverables in minutes.
• Research: It shortcuts the learning curve on industry knowledge, competitor analysis, and technical concepts.
• Data Analysis: You can aggregate and classify unstructured data like user reviews or interview transcripts without manual tagging.
• Prototyping: The cost of prototyping has dropped to near-zero. It is now essentially mandatory for any feature with significant UI.

PMs can also now write or vibe code and ship independent MVPs or experiments. _Note: Be careful here. Do not engage in "shadow-engineering" by creating sub-optimal code that your developers will eventually have to begrudgingly maintain or clean up.

2. The AI as a "Rubber Duck"

Treat AI as a thinking partner or a consultant. It is excellent for sanity checks, finding edge cases you missed, and pressure-testing your strategy.

It is not an oracle - you must be critical of its outputs. It does provides a helpful second (or 3rd, or 875th) perspective when you are stuck.

3. Your competitive edge is shifting

Writing PRDs, generating SQL queries, and general project management are becoming commodities. Being "technical" in the traditional sense is less of a differentiator than it was five years ago.

To stay relevant, focus your personal growth in two areas:

• Soft Skills: Because the technical floor has been raised, the ceiling is now defined by people skills. Stakeholder management, communication, and genuine user empathy are more valuable than ever.

• External Curiosity: The industry is moving too fast for any single company to teach you the right workflows. Internal training is likely outdated. You must rely on external resources and your own curiosity to understand how work is changing.

To summarize - you can do much more in the same amount of time, but you should probably do more of the same (mostly - discovery) and not replace the things you are already doing with things that are effective but are less impactful at figuring out what and why to build.