How AI is redefining the product manager role

This article summarizes an episode of Lenny’s Podcast’s video series featuring Nikhyl Singhala, founder of The Skip.

Nikhyl Singhala, founder of The Skip/ Photo credit: The Skip

Product management job openings are rising, yet the traditional “information mover” role is fading fast. Nikhyl Singhal, founder of The Skip, warns that AI is destroying the old model where product managers survive by passing messages and status updates.

In this new landscape, building software is becoming incredibly cheap. Survival requires product leaders to abandon office politics, rebuild their technical skills, and compete entirely on their ability to make high stakes decisions.

Passing messages is no longer a job

Companies have historically rewarded product managers as human relay between teams. AI is eliminating the need for this role. Meetings to “get everyone on the same page” reflect poor communication that computers will soon handle automatically.

Moving away from these outdated communication loops actually relieves a massive burden on workers. Old company setups created an exhausting workday.

Singhal notes, “Three years ago, [a PM’s] day was largely moving information between teams… the function became focused on responsibility without authority. And so that is the greatest form of workplace stress.”

However, new tools are giving workers direct control over their output. Singhal notes that people are rediscovering joy in their work because they can act on their ideas directly without needing to coordinate with large teams to make a difference.

The jarring shift back to building
While this newfound independence is enjoyable, the shift back to hands on work catches many experienced leaders off guard. Standard career paths historically pushed workers to delegate tasks to gain leverage, leaving senior staff exposed today.

“We start our careers as builders,” Singhal says, “then we get taught that leverage [means]: don’t do the build yourself. And then you find out: all we care about is your opinion and what you build. That’s very jarring.”

To survive, chief product officers are dismantling old structures to “drive efficiency out of their product organizations.”

Making choices becomes the new bottleneck

As old structures fall apart, a new challenge emerges. The death of message passing creates a new bottleneck. As AI lowers prototype costs, teams are flooded with options. Human judgment becomes the speed limit in a world of cheap testing.

“Companies will obsolete all the mechanical parts of building product,” Singhal says, “so there will be 10 to 100 times more changes. When things are changing that rapidly, that judgment piece becomes paramount.”

Leaders must filter distractions. Singhal adds, “You can’t build a hundred custom versions of the same product… how do you build something that’s sustainable and differentiated? That’s judgment.”

How workers survive the change

Job losses look crazy until you see the rebuild

Modern skills rewrite the resume