Saw this on Blind and had to share.
Some engineers were complaining about PMs. This response from an anonymous account (everyone is on Blind) was absolutely brilliant.
AI isn’t replacing PMs anytime soon.
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When everything's running smoothly, it probably looks like PMs are just sitting in meetings all day and making slides or writing ‘useless’ docs. That smoothness doesn't happen by accident. Someone's gotta do all that crap work that keeps projects from going off the rails which would otherwise eat up everyone else's time and mental energy. Day to day PM work is not glamorous but it's what lets engineers actually build instead of getting bogged down in org chaos. Without someone driving the product vision and cross functional alignment bus, you end up with endless circular debates or everyone running off in different directions. And while engineers are deep in the code solving complex technical problems (as they should be!), someone needs to be looking around the corner at what's coming next and figuring out the next best thing that will deliver customer and business impact. There are for sure bad PMs out there who just add bureaucracy and make everything worse. With good ones you might not notice their contribution until something goes wrong.
Innovation is not just about having breakthrough ideas. It's about creating the environment where those ideas can actually become reality. Would you want a PM who tells you exactly what to build every single time? Or would you rather co-create with someone? Each function brings their perspective, and good PMs make sure that the right problems get solved and help translate brilliant design and tech solutions into something that will deliver actual value.
Sure, AI can help with a lot of the mechanical stuff - tracking tasks, generating reports, helping draft documents, etc. But product management isn't just about the mechanical parts. The core of PM work is deeply human. It’s about navigating office politics, reading between the lines in stakeholder conversations, anticipating what will stick and what won’t with leadership, making judgment calls based on incomplete or conflicting information. AI can give you data and analysis, sure. It can't negotiate with others who often just care to be heard to move forward, balance different teams' needs, understand the unspoken organizational context, take responsibility for difficult decisions, or build relationships. Much of effective product management happens in informal conversations and slack chats. AI can help schedule the meetings, but it can't build the trust that unblocks work and makes progress happen. Even in supposedly ‘straightforward’ requirement definition and prioritization work, the real value isn't in the mechanical user writing or ranking of features. It’s often in understanding the subtle implications of each choice, the organizational dynamics at play, and the long-term customer and business implications that might not be immediately obvious.
Could AI make PMs more efficient? Absolutely. But replace them entirely? That's missing the point of what makes PM work in the first place.
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