The textures of Product Management have changed, the role remains the same

The textures of Product Management have changed, the role remains the same

Lately, I've been having a LOT of fun getting back into building. I built a 55-page digital product, end to end, mostly without writing the code myself.

The revamped emoneeds website.

It has the latest stack, optimized for all devices and browsers, sleek and warm design, our 150+ article blog is migrated, lead-gen capture, a chatbot, and even packed with a lot of stuff under the hood, SEO and AEO capabilities, analytics tooling, accessibility. More features than I need actually.

When I started out as a PM in 2019, it would have taken months of collaborative team work to build 75% of what we envisioned. Even a year ago, when I thought the site was due for an overhaul, I was being quoted lakhs and lengthy timelines. The risk of losing search engine equity. And so many more blockers.

It was not feasible at all.

One year has flipped it around. It took me a two weeks from planning to deployment. And it was a lot of fun learning on the job.

Product Management has upgraded, the core principles remain the same, but the methodology and skillset is different.

Today, if you want to be a builder, these are the skills that will come handy.

1. Taste. The AI agents could build any screen I described. But you still have to describe the right thing. That judgment is key.

2. Information architecture. Context is king. The more the better. And collecting context (requirements, data, constraints) is still the most critical part of building.

3. Writing. If you are building for humans, good copy still matters. A lot. Human's may not be writing so much any more, but they are still reading.

4. Orchestration. I ran 3-4 AI coding agents like a tiny product team. One drafted, one designed, one managed the backlog, one coded, the other reviewed and shipped, I did the QA. Knowing how to brief them, and when to overrule them, is a genuine skill now.

5. Enough technical literacy to review. Be curious about what your agents are doing, and build processes and systems that they can follow.

6. Prioritization. Deciding what ships in v1 and what waits is the same muscle whether your team is human or AI. You can do so much more today, but do you really need to? Shipping and getting feedback is still the most important way to get better.

The level of empowerment for any founder, product manager, builder is increasing every day.

You can literally just do things. Are you doing them?