The Evolution: From Strategic Leaders to AI-Human Mediators
Product and Program Managers are dear to my heart. I started my career as a software developer and transitioned to Program and later to Product Manager and I've been in this rodeo for almost quarter of a century. I've seen all of it. And I want to share my thoughts on the future of Product Management in the era of AI.
The software industry is experiencing a fundamental transformation as AI becomes increasingly integrated into product development and decision-making processes. In this essay I share the thinking that product managers will evolve from strategic thought leaders into specialized mediators between objective AI algorithms and subjective corporate and customer decision-making processes. This transformation requires product managers to get new competencies as AI operators, facilitators and supervisors while witnessing the fragmentation of their traditional thought leadership responsibilities between AI systems and senior leadership.
The Emergence of AI-Human Mediation - Why Is This Important?
AI-Human Mediation is the practice of serving as an interpreter and coordinator, an interface between AI systems that provide objective, data-driven recommendations and human stakeholders who make decisions based on politics, emotions, and subjective interpretations. It's essentially being a translator between two different languages: algorithmic logic and human psychology.
To become effective, valuable and impactful AI mediators, product managers need to develop new sophisticated technical competencies beyond traditional skills en masse. For example, proficiency in low-code platforms, understanding of "agentic frameworks" where multiple AI models collaborate autonomously, enhanced empathy for user perspectives around AI solutions, and comprehensive risk management expertise. This is in addition to bridging the inevitable gaps between algorithmic objectivity of AI systems and human organizational complexity influenced by politics, emotions, and subjective interpretations.
Product managers, or as I propose to call them AI Pilots to synergize with AI Co-pilots, will have to understand AI deep enough not only to translate the results, but be able to correctly use it for problem solving and influence without control. AI Pilot will be that AI to Human mediator and someone who will control and manage AI Agents or Co-pilots.
This mediation role becomes critical because organizations need someone who can translate between the deterministic world of algorithms and the ambiguous realm of human decision-making. Without this bridge, companies risk either over-relying on AI recommendations without context or dismissing valuable algorithmic insights due to human bias.
Product Managers will have to evolve from balancing their manager's opinions and choreographing the kabuki theater dances at meetings, to deep understanding of how AI works, how it makes decisions, and how to impact those decisions. In a way, we are moving back to the age of oracles and their priests—priests were those who knew how to ask the oracle and how to interpret its answers. AI is similar to oracle for that both do not explain how they came up with conclusions, it just happens. Even if they did, not many will understand how it works. Ergo the need for humans to mediate. I don't know if AI improvements will make this role obsolete or diminished in the future, but for now we need human mediators. For a small fee.
The Painful Transition: From Job Losses to Role Evolution
The displacement of senior high mileage product managers perfectly illustrates the transformation happening right now. These experienced PMs are getting optimized out because they have different reflexes and as the organizations think, don't fit the new paradigm.
Industry observations suggest this transformation may represent automation of up to 80% of what constitutes today's product management tasks over the next five years, with strategic tasks that AI cannot automate becoming subsumed or fused into other roles. The senior PMs who built their careers on strategic thinking and vision-setting find themselves displaced by two forces: AI systems that can analyze data better than they can, and executives who now have direct access to AI-generated insights.
Senior leadership now assumes greater responsibility for high-level product strategy as AI democratizes access to analytical insights, often bypassing traditional product management roles and moving directly to C-suite positions. At the beginning, it will be like giving an AK to a 4-year-old, but over time AI will improve and become foolproof enough to be given directly to the C-suite, VP level etc. This presents friction between the need for effective mediators i.e., AI Pilots and leadership being entirely self-sufficient. I think it will take some time to settle; I predict some turmoil for the next 3 years and find optimum balance. For both scale and skill. Not every organization or company will be the same, at least for the foreseeable future. With every friction comes an opportunity, just like with physical friction, the energy gets released and can be used to heat water or power computers. Don’t be romantic or lament your fate – we’ve done it before. Learn and adopt.
What All This Means
The evolution of product managers from strategic leaders to AI-human mediators represents both opportunity and constraint for the profession. While this transformation creates new career paths and specialized expertise areas, it also fundamentally limits the strategic influence that has traditionally defined product management excellence. The basic principles of evolution remain – we lose some capabilities that are no longer critical to our thriving and gain new capabilities that drive us forward. The unfortunate truth is that not all will make it, but Darwin had not promised that.
In future essays, I will examine what specifically product managers can do to matter in the new world. All that I described in this essay will not happen overnight and everywhere. It will be gradual, but inevitable.
References
Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2014). The second machine age: Work, progress, and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies. W. W. Norton & Company.
Davenport, T. H., & Kirby, J. (2016). Only humans need apply: Winners and losers in the age of smart machines. Harper Business.