The arrival of AI as a creative partner and co-author means we’re entering an era where the cost of building a product approaches zero. That doesn’t make building irrelevant. It makes it foundational: a necessary but in and of itself insufficient step. The winners will be the ones who pair that speed with thoughtfulness. Who use the time saved by automation not to crank out more features, but to get closer to the user, to test better hypotheses, to sweat the details that AI can’t see.

When organizations flatten hierarchies and outsource key decision-making to AI, they create PMs who look like they know what they’re doing but lack the deep, nuanced understanding required for long-term success. AI-driven tools promise to exacerbate this further by making execution easier, reinforcing a cycle where PMs remain stuck in the mechanics of the role rather than engaging in deeper strategic thinking.

Are LLMs coming for your job as a Product Manager? Not so fast. While tools like ChatGPT are powerful, they still fall short of replacing the creative and logical reasoning that PMs bring to the table. In this post I explore four critical blockers that will keep PMs indispensable in the evolving tech landscape.