The benefits and pitfalls of using AI for product managers

Can AI support and accelerate product management? Imagine predicting customer needs before they even express them, or automating tedious tasks so you can be more hands-on with the work that matters: crafting innovative products.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to integrate AI into product management processes, leveraging it to drive product success. Read to the end to discover our favorite AI tools for product managers that can take your productivity and insights to greater heights.

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AI in product management

Before we get into specific use cases, let’s talk big picture — which, funnily enough, is every product manager’s forté. Rather than dealing with the day-to-day details, product managers are all about product strategy.

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• What is the overarching vision and mission for our product?
• How do we prioritize features based on customer needs and business impact?
• What does success look like for us?

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These are just a few of the questions that a great product manager must ask themselves. If you’re a product manager yourself, then you know that your ability to gather insights and make data-driven decisions is your superpower. However, that doesn’t mean it always comes easy. Sifting through vast amounts of data is tedious work, and on the other side of the spectrum, you might not have enough data to work with. Day-to-day work like scheduling meetings can also detract from your ability to operate from a high level and create the vision you were hired to create.

This is where AI can help. Below, discover specific applications for AI technology in product management.

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How to incorporate AI in product management processes

Artificial intelligence focuses on creating systems that perform tasks requiring human intelligence, using machine learning algorithms to improve performance based on data. AI can assist with many of the responsibilities of a product manager by providing information, generating ideas, and helping you with various tasks. Here’s how:

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Understanding customer needs

Product management requires an extensive amount of market research. Thankfully, you can use AI as your own research assistant. From industry trends to competitor analysis, AI can gather and analyze all types of data, so that you can better leverage the information that’s available to you. This is called data science, and it allows you to identify common themes and pain points more easily, so you can make informed decisions and plan strategically.

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Defining product vision and strategy

Defining product vision and strategy is essential for guiding a product's development and success. Use AI to draft and refine your product vision statement, ensuring it clearly articulates the product's purpose and goals. Additionally, it can generate ideas for product roadmaps and suggest strategic milestones, helping you to outline a clear and actionable plan for achieving your long-term objectives.

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Collaboration with cross-functional teams

Effective communication and documentation are critical for collaboration with cross-functional teams. Generative AI can draft emails, meeting agendas, and collaboration plans, facilitating seamless engagement with different teams. Additionally, it can help create and organize product documentation, specifications, and user guides, ensuring that all team members have access to accurate and up-to-date information.

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Overseeing product development

Product managers might leave the day-to-day execution to project managers and developers, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t involved in the product development process. Product managers must maintain a bird’s eye view in order to ensure alignment and inform stakeholders of progress. AI tools like Wrike and Asana make it so easy for product managers to stay up-to-date with product development, whether you want to keep your view high-level or zoom into the details. Within the same platform, use AI to generate instant reports for your next meeting with stakeholders. 

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Product launch and go-to-market strategy

For product launches and go-to-market strategies, AI can assist in developing detailed launch plans and checklists, ensuring that all necessary steps are covered. It can also help draft marketing content, press releases, and promotional materials, enhancing your product's visibility and reach.

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Monitoring and measuring success

Monitoring and measuring product success is vital for continuous improvement. AI can suggest relevant KPIs and metrics to track, and help interpret data to generate reports on product performance. This allows you to make data-driven decisions and optimize your product over time.

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Daily and weekly routines

For daily and weekly routines, AI can help create agendas for daily stand-ups, weekly check-ins, and review sessions, ensuring that meetings are productive and focused. It can also assist in drafting regular progress reports and updates for stakeholders, keeping everyone informed about the product's status and any developments.

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By leveraging AI’s capabilities, you can streamline many of your tasks as a product manager, allowing you to focus more on strategic decision-making and leadership.

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5 AI tools for product management

Ready to integrate AI into your daily processes? Check out our favorite AI tools for product managers: 

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Clockwise 

Whether you’re setting up interviews with customers or arranging your next big stakeholders meeting, Clockwise can help with all things scheduling. Clockwise is an AI-powered calendar assistant that rapidly calculates the best time for meetings, tasks, and deep work — all based on your preferences. And, with the new AI Scheduler, powered by GPT, you can manage your calendar via chat. Simply type your command in natural language (“Find time to meet with all members of the product team before the end of next week”), and let Clockwise magically handle it for you. This way, you can focus on strategy and big-picture decisions. AI tools for product managers

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Pricing

Clockwise offers four plans:

• Free, perfect for teams who need smart calendar management for a healthier work day
• Teams, starting at $6.75 per user per month, for teams looking to automatically create and protect Focus Time
• Business, 
• Enterprise

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ChatGPT

ChatGPT combines natural language processing and generative AI to create conversational dialogue. You can use ChatGPT to find answers, brainstorm ideas, and even perform tasks for you. For AI product management specifically, ChatGPT is helpful for drafting documentation, summarizing data, and providing suggestions along the development lifecycle. It’s a great, all-around assistant for all of the writing, planning, and strategizing associated with product management.

Pro tip: Marily Nika, AI Product Lead at Google, has an AI product management course on LinkedIn that gives real-world examples of how to use ChatGPT along the product development lifecycle.

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Pricing

With ChatGPT’s free version, you get full access to GPT-3.5 and limited access to GPT‑4o, data analysis, file uploads, and more. Paid plans start at $20 per month and get you access to more advanced AI models, early access to new features, image generation, and more.

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Collato

While Clockwise helps you schedule meetings, Collato turns those meetings into AI-generated notes and documentation. Add Collato’s smart notetaker to your product discussions, and sit back as it records and transcribes the entire conversation for you — ensuring you don’t miss a second of valuable insights. Plus, Collato offers customizable templates, even some that are specific to product management, including product requirements document and user research findings. This makes documentation a breeze. 

Pro tip: Collato currently works with Google Meet only. For a similar AI transcription service that works with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, check out Otter AI.

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Pricing

For free, you can use Collato and receive up to 10 hours of recording each month. For more hours, paid plans start at $10 per seat per month.

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Qualtrics

Qualtrics is a platform dedicated to leveraging data to enhance your product strategy. While it comes with a comprehensive suite of applications, Qualtrics is an online survey tool at its core, allowing you to build surveys that capture product feedback. And, because Qualtrics instantly analyzes your feedback for you, you can rest assured that you’re acting on data in real-time. Qualtrics benefits not just you, but also the data scientists who may be on your team.

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Pricing

You can request pricing here.

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Wrike

When it comes to project management software, there are plenty of impressive options available. However, Wrike stands out as the top choice specifically for product managers looking to up their AI game. The Wrike platform includes a built-in product roadmap software that lets you visualize, manage, and streamline the entire development process. Plus, it’s easy to get started with customizable templates, including a product roadmap template, Agile teamwork template, and product launch template.

Wrike offers an extensive range of AI features, which include AI content creation, content editing, and risk prediction. Overall, Wrike is a fantastic option for product teams, especially those using the Agile methodology.

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Pricing

You can get started with Wrike for free and enjoy project templates, core project views (Table and Kanban view), and generative AI features. Upgrade to a paid plan, starting at $9.80 per user per month, for more views, AI risk prediction, automation, and more. 

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Pitfalls of AI to avoid

While AI can be a powerful tool for product managers, it’s important to know how to effectively use it. That includes avoiding the following pitfalls:

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Over-dependence on AI for strategy and decision-making

Relying too heavily on AI for crafting your product strategy and making critical decisions can be risky. AI should be used as an aid, not a replacement for human intuition and expertise.

• Pro tip: Use AI as a starting point to streamline the initial brainstorming or drafting stages. After AI provides its output, thoroughly review and refine the content with your own insights and strategic thinking. This ensures that your final decisions are well-rounded and consider both data-driven insights and human judgment.

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Neglecting AI for busywork like scheduling

Overlooking the potential of AI to handle administrative tasks can lead to wasted time and mental bandwidth on busywork, detracting from more strategic responsibilities.

• Pro tip: Leverage AI for scheduling meetings, managing routine communications, and automating repetitive tasks. By doing so, you free up valuable time and mental energy, allowing you to focus on deep work and high-impact activities that drive product success.

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Ignoring the quality of your input

Providing poor or vague inputs to generative AI can lead to subpar outputs, which might not effectively serve your needs.

• Pro tip: Focus on the quality of the inputs you provide to AI systems. Clear, detailed, and well-thought-out prompts are crucial for generating useful and accurate responses. Investing time in crafting quality inputs ensures that the AI’s outputs are relevant and beneficial, enhancing the overall decision-making process.

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By being mindful of these pitfalls and using AI strategically, product managers can maximize the benefits of AI while maintaining control over the critical aspects of their role. Prioritizing deep work over busywork, enhancing input quality, and balancing AI assistance with human insight will lead to more effective and informed product management.

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Going forward

Advancements in artificial intelligence are transforming every role in every industry — and the role of product manager is no exception. If you're ready to embrace AI's potential, consider starting with Clockwise. By leveraging Clockwise to handle administrative tasks like scheduling, product managers can optimize their time for strategic thinking and innovation. Try Clockwise today for free!

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