Mike Belsito is Head of Product Evangelism at Pendo and Mind the Product. He’s the author of the upcoming book ‘The Future Proof Product Manager.’ He’s also Co-Founder of Product Collective, organizer of INDUSTRY: The Product Conference, now known as MTP Chicago.
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EC: As AI automates more of the mechanics of product management, what should PMs focus on above everything else?
MB: Today, AI can automate so much of the mechanics of product work away… things like writing specs, drafting PRDs, summarizing user interviews, and keeping stakeholders informed. But those things weren’t really the hard part of the job. They just ate so many hours, so it often felt that way.
The things that can’t be automated away (or at least, shouldn’t!) are timeless core characteristics like judgement, product sense, taste, and curiosity. These skills have always been important, but now they’re more important than ever. AI can give you ten ways to solve something. But it can't see the look on your customer’s face when you talk about a specific problem during a discovery meeting to know that next quarter’s roadmap needs to be reprioritized. Execution used to be the bottleneck, so a PM who could get things built and shipped stood out. But things have changed so fast and we can now build faster than ever… which is great! But it also means we can move in the wrong direction faster than ever.
