Your Team Is Using AI Without You
I walked into a design review expecting to frame the problem space.
Before I could open my laptop, the designer clicked through 18 high-fidelity mocks, three variations for every edge case, a full accessibility pass, and a click-through prototype. Then he looked up and said, “I know you were going to talk about the onboarding. I’ve already explored six versions. Which direction do you want to pick?”
Silence. Stunned. My neatly prepared intro was now useless. He had done three days of work overnight, with AI.
I felt two things at once. Impressed and exposed.
Your team is using AI - with or without you.
This is the conversation every PM I coach is avoiding right now. Your engineers have Claude Code/Codex open every hour of the day. Your designers are generating variations and copy on their own using Figma Make. Your researchers are synthesizing hundreds of interviews in the time it used to take to read one.
Your team is faster, sharper, and more ambitious than they were a year ago.
If your role hasn’t changed to match, you’re going to feel what I felt in that design review. Obsolete.
What Your Team Already Knows
Here’s what your team is probably doing that you haven’t asked about.
Your engineers are using AI to design schemas, write tests, review each other’s PRs, and refactor legacy code on the weekend or while they sleep.
Your designers are generating 20 variations in an hour, running accessibility audits automatically, and writing their own copy before handing anything to you.
Your researchers are clustering user feedback, simulating personas, and summarizing interviews in minutes, not days.
Your analysts are querying data with natural language and building dashboards your CEO can ask questions of directly.
Each of these people used to need you for something. Context. Synthesis. Prioritization. Translation.
They don’t anymore.
The Old PM Role Is Shrinking
Some parts of the job you used to own are now a commodity.
Writing the PRD? Faster without you.
Synthesizing research? Faster without you.
Putting together the status update? Faster without you.
Pulling the data for the review? Faster without you.
A mentor at Meta once told me:
“If you can be automated, you will be automated. The only question is whether you automate yourself first.”
That line hit differently this year. It’s no longer theoretical.
The New PM Role That Just Opened Up
Here’s the good news. As the execution parts of the PM job shrink, a new PM role is opening up. A bigger one.
You become the person who:
Sets the stakes: What matters this quarter and why. Your team can ship anything. They need you to decide what’s worth shipping and what they should not focus on.
Connects the dots: Your engineer knows her code. Your designer knows her flows. Neither of them sees the whole business. Neither of them know the priorities of other teams. You do.
Makes the hard calls: The political ones. The trade-offs. The “we’re going to upset someone” ones. AI can’t do this. Your team shouldn’t have to. You need to.
Protects the vision: When everyone can ship everything, the risk is drift. You’re the one who keeps the product honest to what it’s supposed to be. You say “no”.
You stop being the person with more information. You become the person with better judgment.
Are you ready to sign up for this new role?
How to Stay Ahead of Your Team
If you want to avoid the “quietly obsolete” feeling, here’s what I’d do this month.
Ask every report what AI tools they use: Learn from it. Embed yourself in their flows. You’ll be shocked.
Stop producing. Start deciding: Every week, identify three decisions only you can make. Put your energy there.
Upgrade your 1:1s: Stop asking for status updates. Start the hard conversations about the people, process and product. Use the 30 minutes to pressure-test your team’s thinking.
Swim upstream: Spend more time with customers, leaders, and cross-functional partners. Places AI can’t take you.
Pro tip: The PM who feels threatened by their team’s speed is usually the PM who’s still trying to do the team’s job. Stop racing against your team. Start leading them from the front.
TL;DR
Your team is using AI to do parts of your old job faster than you can. That’s not a threat. That’s a promotion notice. Your new job isn’t to produce more. It’s to decide better. Step up or get passed.
That’s what makes a great PM.
Unlock Your Product Sense
Prepping for PM interviews?
I wrote Product Sense: The Interview Casebook, a hands-on playbook with 30 worked examples and a repeatable flow to run high-signal conversations. Built from my Skillsculpt coaching and hundreds of interviews at Meta, Mozilla & GoDaddy.
Get your copy here: https://a.co/d/ig5AKo2.
Level Up Your Product Leadership
Ready to go from good to great as a PM?
I wrote Level Up: From Good Product Manager to Great Product Manager, a practical guide to mastering the skills that actually move the needle, clarity, communication, judgment, and leadership. Built from years of operating at scale across Meta, Mozilla, and GoDaddy, and shaped through coaching PMs to step into senior roles.
Get your copy here: https://a.co/d/07rDv7LE
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