The future of product management has become a hot topic, sparking debate and even fear, especially following a recent conference talk provocatively titled “Product Management is Dead.” I want to share my thoughts on the assertions from this talk and the current state of product management.

The “Product Management is Dead” Controversy

The main premise of the talk was that AI is going to cause a major disruption in how product teams operate. The speaker envisioned a near future where PMs are no longer necessary because, with the help of AI, we will suddenly have 10x unicorn people who are masters of PM, UX design, and development. I just don’t think that’s how AI is going to impact product teams, especially not in the near future.

To be sure, AI will change some aspects of the work that product team members currently do. For product managers, AI can help summarize and synthesize data, such as voice-of-customer (VOC) feedback and transcripts from customer interviews and support calls. For developers, generative AI can write code to save them time.

While AI can assist with many lower-level tasks, it cannot magically transform a specialist in one key function — PM, UX design, or development — into a “triple threat” overnight. Mastering even one of these skills is challenging enough. If you’ve been fortunate to work with a “10x” or “rockstar” developer, PM, or designer, you know how rare these people are.

People are researching how AI will impact our work. One insightful research study from MIT analyzed the impact of AI on product development, innovation, and productivity. The study showed that AI helps people with the most experience and strong judgement the most. Workers with low experience didn’t benefit much. Thanks to Marty Cagan for highlighting this research.

This study’s conclusion matches what I found when I explored using Gen AI to help product teams with discovery. I described my conclusion in terms of Divergent vs. Convergent thinking:

Gen AI is strong at generating new ideas, but human judgement is better at evaluating the ideas and selecting the best one.

I summarized my conclusion in the slide below; you can also check out the video of my talk if you want to go deeper.

AI Disruption versus Economic Factors

In my experience working with product managers and teams across industries, the biggest factor impacting product management recently is not AI but the weak economy, which has hit the tech sector particularly hard. Unfortunately, this economic downturn follows a phase of incredible growth in product management, which is why recent times have felt especially challenging for so many PMs.

Having lived through several economic downturns – the .com bust, the mortgage crisis, and Covid – this one does feel different. I keep waiting for the layoffs to die down. The layoffs have diminished from their peak, but the length of time this downturn has lasted does seem much longer than in the past.

Data from Layoffs.fyi (which tracks tech layoffs) shows the peak of layoffs occurring in the first quarter of 2023, with the most recent worst quarter since then being the first quarter of 2024 (see chart).

Double clicking on 2024: January, April and August were bad months. However, layoffs have been consistently lower each month this year since August (see chart).

Are companies right-sizing across product team functions (PM, UX, and development)? Definitely. Is PM systematically being reduced or eliminated? No.

Adding to the confusion are specific actions by certain company founders. Most notably, at Figma’s Config conference in June 2023, Brian Chesky mentioned changes at Airbnb that were interpreted as eliminating product managers at the company. However, this interpretation has proven inaccurate. Later in the very same talk, Brian said, “Make no mistake, product managers are critical, they just shouldn’t be doing the job of a designer.” Brian also clarified in a tweet: “I should have been more clear. We morphed the function into an Apple-style product marketing function.” If you want to go down the rabbit hole to learn more about this specific topic, I recommend this article by Jon Harmer.

While the layoffs due to the economic downturn are happening at the same time as the rise of AI, I think each trend is happening independently and one is not causing the other.

Why the “Product Management is Dead” Narrative?

Returning to the conference talk: Why did the speaker choose such a provocative title? While I can’t know their exact reasoning, I can share some hypotheses.

Conference speakers often try to come up with controversial titles for their talks to spark more interest and attention. As a frequent speaker at product conferences, I can understand this desire. In the last 10 years, I’ve also hosted many speakers at my monthly Lean Product Meetup and have seen how a good talk title definitely makes a difference in turnout and response. I was at the conference where this AI talk was given and after the talk, many attendees were certainly abuzz about the claim that product management is dead.

The reality is that it is super easy for anyone on the internet to proclaim that anything “is dead.” Just like it’s super easy for anyone in a crowded theater to yell out “Fire!” Just Google “Agile is dead”, “marketing is dead”, or “social media is dead” to see what I mean.

Other people have pointed out that the speaker is the founder of a business that uses AI to automatically create PRDs (product requirement documents), so therefore they may have a vested interesting in selling the narrative that AI will replace PM.

Interestingly, I have not seen product thought leaders or leaders at top companies make the same claim that product management is dead. This absence, combined with my data and observations, makes me even more skeptical of the claim.

Product Management is Here to Stay

While the future is never certain and the PM community continues to navigate the challenges of a weak economy, I remain very optimistic about the future of product management.

Any time there is a disruptive paradigm shift, there will be winners and losers. In the last 30 years, we’ve seen several major technology paradigm shifts, including the internet and mobile. It’s hard to predict exactly how AI will evolve, but strong product managers will always be in demand, as will strong designers and developers.

As AI enables teams to complete lowers-level tasks more efficiently, PMs will have more time to focus on higher-level tasks like customer research, prioritization, and product strategy. This shift will likely make their contributions more valuable, not less.

PMs should be Leaning In to AI

All this being said, it’s clear that AI is a major disruption that is here to stay. As with any important new tech wave, product managers should be leaning in and exploring it versus burying their head in the sand. AI is not the enemy. AI can help you do your job more efficiently and effectively.

There are (at least) 3 distinct ways PMs should be thinking about AI:

1.     How can AI help me do my job better?

2.     How should we be integrating or adding AI to our existing product?

3.     What new AI products should we be developing?

I conducted a LinkedIn poll to assess which of those 3 topics was most relevant.

The first two topics were the most popular at around 40% each, which isn’t surprising since not many people are building a new AI product from scratch.

Luckily, there is no shortage of resources to learn about AI. If you’re thinking about your goals for 2025, I would encourage you to learn more about AI. At a minimum, it should increase your productivity. And if (when?) our AI overlords eventually weigh judgement on us, they may look at you more favorably (insert your favorite scary AI meme here: SkyNet, Roko’s Basilisk, or the Master Control Program from Tron).

Closing Thoughts

In all seriousness, this is a challenging time for product managers and more broadly all tech workers. When you consider the sheer number of tech companies and product managers, I don’t think the comments of a few individuals should cause alarm. But we are living through an economic downturn that has lasted much longer than those in the past. And AI is on the rise. My main point is that while those two trends are happening at the same time, they are not causally related.

What do you think? How do you think AI will affect the nature of product manager’s work? Do you believe AI will reduce the need for product management or not?

Please share your thoughts—I’d love to hear how you think the role of Product Management will evolve over time.