Published ∙ 4 min read
The product manager of 2025
Brian Swift
CEO, Twine
The role of product manager has been redefined. Not by methodologies or frameworks, but by a fundamental shift in how software gets built. AI isn’t just changing the tools we use. It’s transforming who we need to be.
A glimpse of the future
The ongoing evolution of engineering provides a preview of this transformation. While AI has become an integral part of the development process, engineers remain essential. The best engineers have evolved beyond basic coding tasks, becoming system-level thinkers and architects of elegant, scalable solutions to complex customer problems.
These engineers delegate repeatable tasks to AI with increasing frequency, knowing that artificial assistance can handle up to 80% of the implementation. This creates space to focus on the strategic elements where human insight proves invaluable. The shift has changed how they think about their craft, elevating their focus to higher levels of abstraction. They spend their time thinking deeply about scalability and customer impact rather than syntax and structure.
Some engineers resist this evolution, clinging to the belief that writing code defines their core value. By competing with AI rather than harnessing it to amplify their impact, they foreshadow a challenge that product managers now face: our craft has evolved, and we must evolve with it.
What this means for product managers
Product management stands at a similar inflection point. AI has begun handling many routine aspects of the role—writing specs, managing backlogs, creating status updates. This technological shift opens up remarkable possibilities for expanding our impact.
Product managers who embrace these capabilities will discover newfound time for truly valuable activities: understanding markets, developing strategy, and building customer-centric cultures. The best PMs already focus on these areas. AI now enables everyone to operate at this higher level, with technological assistance handling the routine work that previously filled our calendars.
The new product manager
Tomorrow’s standout product managers will excel by:
- Building systems that act as force multipliers for team impact
- Creating cultures where customer insight drives decisions automatically
- Developing strategies that create sustainable competitive advantages
- Enabling teams to move faster through simplified processes
This evolution extends beyond individual PMs to transform entire product orgs. As AI assists engineers and designers with their routine tasks, these roles naturally expand. Team members take on traditional PM responsibilities because technological advances make it natural and efficient. Removing documentation and coordination friction enables strategic thinking across the entire team.
The result? Smaller, more capable, and dramatically more efficient teams. Traditional role boundaries fade as teams become groups of highly enabled individuals, each driving substantial outcomes. Product managers evolve into adaptive connectors, providing whatever their teams need to succeed.
Leading the transformation
Product managers face an important choice: enhance their impact through these new capabilities or risk professional stagnation. Spending days in planning meetings, writing documentation, and managing tickets is not the way of the future. While these tasks matter, automation handles them effectively, freeing humans to add value in more meaningful ways.
Organizations that embrace this shift early will develop significant advantages and nurture the next generation of product leaders. They’ll achieve faster execution and better outcomes with streamlined teams. Beyond mere efficiency, this represents a fundamental advance in how software gets built.
Look at today’s most compelling products—increasingly, they come from small, high-performance teams achieving outsized impact. Their success stems from superior systems, better tools, deeper customer focus, and clarity about where human contribution matters most.
A roadmap for reinvention
Here’s a practical action plan to thrive in this evolving landscape as a product manager:
- Audit and automate your routine work Pick your three most time-consuming recurring tasks. Document your exact process for each. Find and test AI tools that could handle 80% of this work. Start with simple things like writing status updates, analyzing feedback patterns, or drafting product specs.
- Shift your learning focus Move beyond courses about product frameworks. Dive into your market, your customers’ industries, and emerging technologies. Read business strategy alongside product management texts. Deep market understanding generates more value than process management.
- Build your AI toolkit Create a personal stack of AI tools that augment your capabilities. You need solutions for writing, analysis, and information processing. Test them thoroughly. Get comfortable with their limitations. Learn when to trust them and when to override them.
- Reorganize your time Block out two hours every day for deep thinking and strategic work. Ruthlessly delegate or automate everything else. If you can’t find two hours, start logging your activities. You’ll quickly spot the low-value work that’s stealing your time.
- Change how you measure yourself Replace output metrics like documents written or tickets closed with measures of business impact. Track customer problems solved, strategic insights generated, and your influence on product strategy. These metrics reflect your true contribution.
The future of product management belongs to those who embrace this transformation. You can help lead this change or adapt to its consequences later. Start small, but start today.