While Learning AI Product Management: What's the Same?
It turns out that building great products still involves nailing the product management fundamentals, AI or no AI.
As if I don’t have enough going on in my life, I’ve started this great Udemy course on AI Product Management to better understand how to manage AI products.
I’ve built some prototype products with OpenAI’s APIs and client SDKs. There’s a ton that is fascinating about the new generation of AI technologies built off of decades of prior art.
Naturally, as a product manager, you can see that AI will be more and more involved in our product experiences in the future. So, a good question to ask is: what do I need to know as a PM to start incorporating AI as a technology into my product experiences?
What I’ve found learning about product management thus far as it relates to AI is that, thankfully, much of the job remains the same. Looking at the outline of the course, here are the attributes of being an AI Product Manager that are essentially the same as conducting product management responsibilities on any other product:
You still sit at the intersection of Technology, Business, and UX
Your job is still to evaluate how best to use the technology in service of the business and its relevant customers
You still represent your users and stakeholders in every aspect of the product development lifecycle
You are responsible for understanding the technologies related to your product area and how best to wield them to solve problems
You still have to craft a great product strategy, complete with an understanding of your market via SWOT analyses and other strategic tools
You still need to understand how to build and test hypotheses
You still need to work with Design or design yourself based on User Research and User Personas
You still need to DO USER RESEARCH at a high level
In summary, you still have to be a great product manager. It’s not enough to intimately understand the technologies you’re working with. You still need to wield those technologies ultimately to serve your users and the business outcomes you’re setting out to achieve.
This wave of AI, specifically generative AI, in my mind, has a lot of parallels to native mobile back in my ancient days (2007, I feel so young and so old at the same time).
When I began in product management, my first role was as a Mobile Product Manager. It was hot to be well-versed in the iOS and Android platforms. I even used Stanford’s iOS course and later Udemy’s courses to learn more about how to build software on each platform.
However, as I progressed in my career, I learned that understanding the platforms and technologies was a big piece of the puzzle but not the only piece. Ultimately, building a great mobile product came down to building great products, period.
So, if I were someone wondering how to get into the game of being an AI Product Manager, diving into learning about the technology is a good thing. But don’t forget to learn in parallel how to be a great Product Manager, too. That’s just as important as whatever technology wave is coming next.
Next, I’ll summarize what I’ve learned while learning about what’s different for AI Product Managers. Stay tuned!