FROM THE FRONTIER
How AI is changing how we build products | Ex-CPOs at Calendly and WP Engine
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AI won’t replace product managers. It will transform how they work. “The job is not going away. The tasks… will change,” say Oji and Ezinne Udezue, who have led product teams at iconic startups like Typeform, Calendly, and WP Engine. While AI speeds up some tasks, human judgment remains essential for understanding customers and making strategic decisions.
Delivery is speeding up. Product management has three main pillars: discovery, delivery, and go-to-market. AI is supercharging delivery, producing code up to ten times faster. But the first and last pillars — customer insight and market strategy — still require human creativity.
Executives want AI — but judgment still matters. When leaders push for an AI strategy, the Udezues recommend starting with AI’s core powers: personalization, agentic actions, summarization, and new ways of handling data. These should be woven into workflows from the ground up. Yet even with these tools, human judgment remains critical to executing these product decisions.
Interfaces are evolving. Chatbots are popular now, but they aren’t the future. “If chat would have been the dominant interface, then DOS would have won,” Oji says. Instead, voice and adaptive interfaces are emerging, tailoring themselves to each user’s cognitive patterns for truly personalized experiences.
Roles will reappear, but in new ways. “The architects, the people who know the business, [will always be needed] to evolve the operations of the organization,” Ezzine says. With AI handling coding, design, and financial modeling, PMs now straddle boundaries once reserved for separate teams. The role isn’t disappearing — it’s expanding.
via SuperHuman