There’s no escaping it: AI is fundamentally changing the PM workflow. We have AI-powered tools that can summarize user interviews in seconds, draft entire PRDs, and analyze market data with breathtaking speed. The promise of offloading our most tedious tasks so we can focus on ‘deep work’ is incredibly appealing.
But as we integrate these tools, we have to ask a critical question: are we becoming better strategists or just faster administrators?
The real danger isn’t that AI will take our jobs, but that it might subtly create a buffer between us and our users. True product intuition comes from sitting with raw, messy, and often contradictory user feedback. It’s born from the ‘aha!’ moments in live conversations, not just the sanitized summary of a transcript. When we automate the synthesis, do we risk outsourcing the very process that builds empathy and deep understanding?
Efficiency is a powerful lure, but our core function has always been to be the voice of the customer, not just the manager of the backlog.
How are you using AI in your day-to-day work while ensuring you don’t lose that essential, direct connection to your users’ real-world problems?