AI Won’t Replace Product Owners — It’ll Make the Best Ones Unstoppable

Being a Product Owner in a World with AI

Being a Product Owner is a crucial job, like being the captain of a ship. You help decide what to build, make sure everyone is working on the right things, and keep the team focused. But now, with AI (Artificial Intelligence), some people are worried. They ask, "Will AI take my job?" or "Will I just be telling a computer what to do?"

What I Learned About AI

I recently took a class about how AI fits into our work. One big idea stuck with me: the jobs that will do well with AI are not the ones that try to fight it. Instead, they are the ones that use AI in a smart, caring, and helpful way. And guess what? That's exactly what great Product Owners already do!

So, here's the truth:

AI won't replace Product Owners. Instead, it will make the best Product Owners even better!

The biggest chance to do well is when humans and AI work "With Me" together. AI can help you get things done faster, find new ideas, and clear away small tasks. This gives the human leader more time to lead, inspire, and figure things out.

How AI Can Help You Every Day

We think about how AI can help in three ways: How It Works, Who Does It? What AI Does

• My Work (Me Only) => These are big-picture tasks only a human can do. No AI here!

• For Me Work (AI Only) => AI does these tasks all by itself.

• With Me Work (Me + AI) => AI works with me to get things done.

This plan helps Product Owners know where to spend their time and where AI can be a great helper.

My Work: Where Humans are Still the Boss

Some parts of being a Product Owner just need a human. Things like deciding the big picture for a product, talking to important people, or making tough choices. AI can give you information, but you're still the one who makes the final decision. This is when your leadership really shines!

Here's why AI can't do these jobs:

• Figuring out what a product should be: This needs you to understand a lot, talk to many people, and have a good feeling for the future.

• Influencing important people: This is about building trust and understanding how people work together.

• Deciding between different needs: This means understanding small details, making tough choices, and knowing the risks.

• Leading your team: You need to understand people's feelings, motivate them, and be clear, even when things are difficult.

• Making decisions when things are unclear: Humans are better than computers at dealing with things that aren't perfectly clear.

Tip: AI can give you facts and ideas, but you're still the leader who makes the important calls. That's what your organization needs most!

For Me Work: Tasks AI Should Do Alone

Product Owners often spend too much time on boring, repeated tasks. Things like writing reports, updating tickets, or asking for progress reports. This is where AI can step in and take over!

Lets have a look at some common PO tasks and AI Tools That Can Help

• Writing quick summaries of meetings - Otter.ai or ChatGPT with notes

• Making reports - Notion AI or special dashboards

• Finding and sorting bugs (problems) - built into systems like Jira

• Grouping customer ideas and feelings - Tools that understand language to find main ideas

• Writing instructions for users - Creating help guides, how-to's, and common questions from past notes

These tasks don't need a human to think creatively; they just need to be done correctly and quickly. Let AI handle them!

With Me Work: How AI Makes You Better

This is the really cool part: "With Me" work. Here, AI doesn't replace you; it makes you even stronger! It's like having a super-smart helper for planning, looking at information, and writing, all in just a few seconds.

AgaAgain, let'sok at some common PO tasks and see how AI can help

• Writing user stories (what users need): Helps write clear stories from big ideas

• Making sure tasks are clear for testing: Turns "what we want" into things we can check

• Organizing your list of tasks: Suggests what to do first based on how fast you work, other tasks, and how people use the product

• Checking out competitors: Quickly summarizes what other companies are doing

• Writing notes about new product releases: Drafts messages, emails, or updates for important people

• Coming up with ideas for experiments: Suggests different ways to test things out

When you use AI to make your own thinking sharper, amazing things happen. A weak Product Owner might just get confusing information from AI, but a strong one will use AI to get a huge advantage!

What This Looks Like in a Day

Imagine a day for a Product Owner working with AI:

9:00 - Reviewing the sprint with the team (My Work)

10:30 - Making a summary of the meeting and action items (For Me Work)

11:00 - Writing notes about new features from tasks (With Me Work)

12:00 - Lunch... AI finds cool news about the industry (For Me Work)

1:00 - Making the task list better using customer feedback (With Me Work)

2:00 - Meeting with important people: changing priorities (My Work)

3:30 - Creating tests based on how we'll check tasks (With Me Work)

4:30 - Writing an email update for the team with AI help (With Me Work)

Don't Just Chase New Tools

It's easy to get excited about every new AI tool or trick. But the best Product Owners aren't great because of the tools they use. They are great because of:

• Clear direction: Knowing exactly where they're going.

• Caring about users and teams: Understanding what people need and how they feel.

• Good judgment: Making smart choices when things are difficult.

• Getting things done: Being disciplined about finishing tasks.

Tools are helpful, but the human is the one who truly makes things valuable. So, don't start by asking, "What tool should I use?" Instead, ask: "What do I want to achieve, and what's the best way to get there?"

The Real Big Chance Ahead

As AI gets smarter, Product Owners who can:

• Ask great questions

• Choose the best information to put into AI

• Understand what AI tells them

• Turn all of that into action

...will become super valuable to any company.

If you work in a field where rules are strict or there's a lot of risk, being able to use AI without losing control or making mistakes will make you super important. If you're at a new company or one that's growing fast, AI lets you do more with less—like being an army of one without losing your main goals.

A comment from a CEO on a recent post hit the nail on the head"Programs rarely implode, they normally just erode" i.e. they slowly fall apart. AI can help you see those small problems earlier and fix them faster. But it's your leadership that makes the real difference.

Need Help? We Can Do That!

At Agile Product Mastery, we help Product Owners become experts at leading, even when everything is changing. And if things are going off track, our other company, Baltimore Advisory, can step in. We help leaders find problems early, get back on track, and take control again.

What to Do Next

• Ask us for our guide on "My / For Me / With Me" for Product Owners

• Sign up for our newsletter to get helpful tips every week.

• Ask us about coaching or workshops for your team on using AI.

AI won't replace you. But someone who uses AI better than you might. So, lead the change—or get left behind!