Image for The 9 Categories of AI Product Management Work: Understanding AI’s Role in Product Development
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping how Product Managers (PMs) build, optimize, and innovate in the tech world. With the ability to enhance features, create new capabilities, and even redefine entire products, AI plays a pivotal role in today’s product management. But how exactly does AI fit into the world of PMs, and what different types of AI work are PMs handling?
This guide breaks down the 9 categories of AI Product Management (PM) work into three main areas of AI application: Improving existing features, Creating new features, and Building new AI-based products. Let’s explore each category and its importance in product management.
| Category | Use AI to Improve Existing Features | Creating a New Feature That Wouldn’t Be Possible Without AI | Create a New AI-Based Product |
| Core Product PMs | Enhancing Search Capabilities with AI | A New AI Feature within the Core Product | A New AI Product to the Portfolio |
| Growth Product PMs | Personalized Homepage Ordering | A New AI Generator for Part of Your Product | A New AI-Based Lead Magnet |
| AI PMs | Improving Google’s Search Algorithm’s Ranking | Create Code Interpreter for ChatGPT | The New Sora Text-to-Video Model |
Example: Enhancing Search Capabilities with AI
Core product PMs often focus on integrating AI to make existing features smarter and more efficient. For instance, AI can improve a search feature by better understanding user queries, offering personalized results, and predicting search intent. This type of work centres around incremental improvements that enhance user experience within existing systems.
💡 Scenario: Imagine you’re a PM for an e-commerce platform. By using AI to improve your search engine, you can deliver more personalized product recommendations, helping users find relevant items faster, which boosts both engagement and conversion rates.
Example: A New AI Feature within the Core Product
AI can unlock new capabilities that were not previously feasible. For example, adding a voice search feature powered by natural language processing (NLP) or AI-driven analytics that predict customer behaviour patterns.
💡 Scenario: As a PM for a streaming service, you add a feature that uses AI to suggest playlists based on users’ listening habits, mood, or even the time of day. This feature wasn’t possible before without AI’s ability to analyze vast amounts of user data in real time.
Example: A New AI Product to the Portfolio
Core product PMs also innovate by building completely new products based on AI technology. These new products could range from smart assistants to automated customer service bots. The goal here is to leverage AI to design entirely new offerings that complement the company’s existing product suite.
💡 Scenario: A product manager at a software company launches a new AI-powered virtual assistant that helps users automate repetitive tasks, thus increasing productivity and offering a whole new product line to customers.
Example: Personalized Homepage Ordering
Growth product PMs focus on using AI to optimize specific components of a product, such as a homepage layout or user onboarding flow. For example, AI can help reorder homepage sections based on a user’s past interactions and preferences, making the page more relevant and engaging for individual users.
💡 Scenario: As a growth product PM for a new platform, you use AI to personalize the homepage layout by displaying articles in an order that’s based on the user’s reading history and preferences, increasing both engagement and session time.
Example: A New AI Generator for Part of Your Product
AI enables growth product PMs to build new features that automatically generate content, recommendations, or reports based on user input. This type of feature could be a product recommendation engine or a personalized email campaign generator for marketing teams.
💡 Scenario: You build a feature for an e-learning platform that uses AI to generate custom learning paths based on a user’s strengths and weaknesses, providing a tailored educational experience.
Example: A New AI-Based Lead Magnet
In growth product management, PMs often use AI to build new products that attract customers or enhance user acquisition. For example, an AI-powered lead magnet—like an AI-driven content recommendation engine—can attract users by offering highly personalized experiences right from the start.
💡 Scenario: You create an AI-driven content recommendation tool for a SaaS company that allows potential customers to interact with and explore personalized solutions before they commit to a full subscription, driving new leads.
Example: Improving Google’s Search Algorithm’s Ranking
AI PMs manage the implementation of advanced AI algorithms to improve highly technical features like search rankings, recommendation engines, or fraud detection systems. This work requires an in-depth understanding of AI models and their application to existing systems.
💡 Scenario: As an AI PM, you work on improving Google’s search algorithm by refining its ranking model using machine learning. This results in delivering more accurate and personalized search results to users.
Example: Creating a Code Interpreter for ChatGPT
AI PMs also lead the development of new AI-powered tools or features that revolutionize user interactions. For example, adding a code interpreter to a chatbot like ChatGPT to enhance its ability to understand and execute code.
💡 Scenario: You lead a team to create a feature where an AI chatbot interprets and executes Python code snippets, helping developers debug and test code directly in chat.
Example: The New Sora Text-to-Video Model
AI PMs often lead the charge in developing cutting-edge AI product management that open up new markets or services. An example would be developing a text-to-video AI model that converts written scripts into animated videos using machine learning algorithms.
The 9 categories of AI PM work demonstrate the wide-ranging applications of AI product management, from optimizing existing features to creating groundbreaking new products. Whether you’re enhancing a product’s functionality, launching innovative features that would be impossible without AI, or building entirely new AI-driven products, there’s no doubt that AI is reshaping the role of product management.
For PMs, understanding how to leverage AI is no longer optional—it’s essential. As AI continues to evolve, so too will how PMs can drive innovation, improve customer experiences, and create value in their products. The future of AI product management is full of exciting possibilities, and those who master these categories will lead the charge in shaping tomorrow’s tech landscape.
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