It feels like every roadmap meeting now has an unspoken requirement: what’s our AI story? The pressure from leadership, competitors, and the market to integrate AI is immense. But this pressure can lead us down a dangerous path—turning our teams into ‘AI feature factories’ that churn out flashy demos that don’t solve real user problems.
We risk shipping solutions in search of a problem, bolting on a clunky generative AI feature that disrupts a perfectly good workflow. The core principles of product management haven’t been suspended. Our job is to be the voice of the customer, anchoring every initiative in genuine user needs and measurable business value, not just technological novelty.
Integrating AI isn’t the same as building a deterministic feature. It requires a different approach to user research, handling unpredictable outputs, and setting user expectations. We have to move the conversation from ‘we need an AI feature’ to ‘here is a user problem that AI is uniquely positioned to solve.’
How are you navigating this in your organization? What frameworks or questions are you using to ensure your AI features are truly valuable and not just hype?