Staying Relevant as a Product Leader in an AI World
Learning to speak AI, even if you’re not building with AI every day
This week, I was coaching a client who's deep in interview prep, and we found ourselves talking about AI. Specifically, how she might immerse herself in the space when she’s not actively building AI-enabled products.
Right now, job descriptions for product roles are full of phrases like “AI/ML PM,” which can feel like a big leap if you haven’t been living in that world.
Some of my clients are lucky.
They’re building AI-powered tools today. They’re knee-deep in prompt engineering and building the muscle every single day. I said to another one of my clients who is, do you know how lucky you are do be building and shipping AI-enabled tech right now?!
But what if you’re not?
What if your current role doesn’t give you direct access to AI projects?
How do you keep your skills sharp, and your narrative compelling, especially when you’re interviewing for a new role?
A few years ago, I wrote a piece called “The Concepts (Not Code) I Know to Work Effectively with Engineers.” Back then, I stated you don’t need to know how to code1 but you do need to know engineering concepts to work with engineers.
Thinking about this AI conundrum with my client this week, I can’t help but think the same philosophy applies now: you don’t need to have shipped AI-enabled technology but you do need to be able to speak to it. You need to know the concepts.
Yes, of course, it’s great if you’ve shipped AI features. But for the majority of PMs, it’s just not a reality. The more realistic and important goals are:
Can you have an informed conversation about AI-enabling technology?
Can you speak the language - do you know what’s new and are you up to speed?
Can you ask sharp questions, and challenge default assumptions like “we should use AI to solve this”?
Note that all of these questions might be easier if you’re building in this space. But don’t require you to be doing so. Very few people will be right now.
So the real question becomes: how do you build that language and perspective?
My take: start with how you learn best.
Pick a means of engagement that you can integrate into your day to day. If you’re a reader, sign up for a Substack. If you’re a listener, subscribe to a podcast. Do you need to build to learn? Try a course.
If you’re in product development and you’ve been trying to up level your AI game, what have you used to stay fresh? I’ll start….but I’ll keep this evergreen list going.
Comment in with some of your favorite resources in the comments. Here are some of mine.
Listening
Lenny Rachitsky launched a new podcast called “How to AI” with Claire Vo. Given how great his content is, I’d be this one is going to be good.
The AI Daily Brief: Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis (ty Ben Wolfert!)
AI & I by Dan Shipper
Reading
Co-intelligence: Living and Working with AI (ty Ben Wolfert!)
The Every Newsletter by Dan Shipper
Courses
Maven has so many AI courses.
If I were a practicing PM I’d take Colin Matthews’ prototyping course.
And if I were interviewing, I’d be sure to take Ben Erez’s AI copilot course.
I’d also be reading Ben Lang’s newsletter because he surfaces the the hottest new companies, many in the AI space.
Thought Leaders
David Pereira has a ton of great content, like How The Top 1% of PMs use AI.
Ravi Mehta was one of the first to write about AI “killing product” - his latest piece How to work like an AI-first PM provides some great tactical tips.
Aman Khan has a dedicated AI playbook newsletter and provides great tactical tips on how to incorporate AI into your day-to-day.
Who are you reading, listening to and following on the topic?
Hi - I’m Jori and I’m a Product Coach. If you’re Product Leader or on a Product team looking for support - drop me a note.
Kinda meta and foreshadowing as vibe coding proliferates and makes the need to learn traditional coding languages more irrelevant than ever.
Paweł Huryn has also tons of excellent stuff on AI for PMs on Substack