Stop Calling It AI Product Management
Start Calling It What It Is: Product Management
It’s 2025. Every product manager is now, by default, an AI PM. Let’s stop title inflation & stay anchored in what matters: great product management.
So, with apologies to Gary Larson's original “How to Recognize the Mood of an Irish Setter”, I offer this parody: “How to Recognize the Job Title of a Product Manager.”
Six panels. Six wildly different labels. One gloriously unbothered dog face.
It’s funny because nothing actually changes, just like real product management.
Same bark. Same backlog. New buzzwords.
Let’s count the ways.
Role #1: Product Manager (The Control Group)
No prefix. No props. Just pure, uncut product management.
Not the Jira-flavored version. Not the “please align this roadmap with my OKRs” version.
We’re talking the real thing: delivering value by navigating chaos with clarity.
10 Things That Actually Define Great Product Management
Fall in love with the problem
Deliver outcomes, not output
Say no like it’s your love language
Prioritize like focus is a competitive advantage (because it is)
Translate ambiguity into alignment
Frame product bets, not backlog sludge
Build momentum, not just velocity
Lead without authority — and without whining
Validate early, adjust often
Ship value that actually moves the needle
Role #2: Technical Product Manager
What’s Different-ish
You bridge technical feasibility with customer value
You understand scale and semantics
You turn infrastructure into strategic advantage
You protect your engineers from bad ideas
You connect backend to business without a translator
See Role #1
Role #3: Data Product Manager
What’s Nuanced
You wrangle data as a product, not an afterthought
You define trust as a deliverable
You govern with grace, not red tape
You’re fluent in correlation and causation
See Role #2
See Role #1
Role #4: Agile Product Manager
What’s Slightly More Iterative
You treat iteration as learning, not just slicing
You unify discovery and delivery without handoffs
You work in loops, not ladders
See Role #2
See Role #1
Role #5: Product Owner
What’s Slightly Different
You connect product vision and strategy to execution with ruthless clarity
You protect the “why” behind the “what” on behalf of the "who."
See Role #4
See Role #1
🤖 Role #6: AI Product Manager
What’s Allegedly New
AI-first product management is not about bolting on intelligence onto legacy ‘Frankensoft’ workflows—it’s about reimagining the product core around insights, delegation, adaptability, and systemic trust.
See Roles #2, #3, and #4
See Role #1
We promise they’re all different. Look closely.
No really… keep squinting…
Final Thought: Can We Kill the “AI Product Manager” Title Now?
It’s 2025.
Congratulations: you’re already an AI Product Manager.
Even Ken Norton wrote about this on LinkedIn the other day, where he said:
The role is shifting and evolving, as it always has. It will change as much or more over the next 20 years as it has since I wrote my essay. But the human stuff that actually matters most in PM’ing is the least likely to be automated by AI.
Why? Because every product manager today — every last Irish setter-faced one of us — is:
Considering how AI delivers customer and business value
Using AI to accelerate daily PM decisions and delivery
And learning how to work alongside systems that don’t always play by the rules
Just like with mobile. Just like with cloud. Just like with every other revolutionary disruptor that turned out to be just … product management, evolving.
Yes, you need to pick up new skills.
Yes, some of them are weird and mathy.
But they’re all tangible.
What’s permanent — what you’re actually hired for — is:
Clarity
Judgment
Strategy
Taste
Leadership
You know… the intangibles.
So let’s stop inflating titles.
Let’s stop pretending the prefix makes the practice.
Kill the “AI Product Manager” label.
And just call it what it is:
Product management. Done well.
We really needed this!
Cutting through all the fluff in the namings.
AI is working with data and we should do that already.
Thank you Dean!