A blog on product management and leadership

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the talk about AI. Will it take our jobs away? Can it be used to help us, and not replace us? How can you start to leverage it so you can end up on the winning side of the AI era?

A recent study found that 52% of U.S. workers are “worried” about AI impacting their job, while only 29% are “excited” about AI.

Where are you on this spectrum? Where do you want to be?

The best way to navigate this landscape is to try the technology, which will help you identify opportunities to leverage it.

Just commit 2 minutes to start. Right now, open ChatGPT and enter: “Draft a concise, professional email asking for a meeting about [any topic].” Try it and see what it does!

Example: In less than a minute, ChatGPT drafted an email and adjusted it based on my feedback 👇

💡The more context you provide, the better the output will be

Some practical use cases for AI tools:

✅ Improve your writing

• Ask a GenAI (Generative AI) tool to improve something you’ve already written, such as to more clearly communicate the key points or to shorten the length
• Example prompt: “Make this email more concise and professional”
  🛠️Tools: ChatGPT, Claude

✅ Prototype an idea

• Whether it’s something related to your job or just an idea you’ve had, you can get it visualized in just a few minutes
• Example prompt: “Create a landing page for a task management SaaS product”
  🛠️Tools: V0, Bolt, Lovable, Tempo

✅ Do research

• Ask a GenAI tool to provide data, a list, or a summary about something you’re working on
• Example prompt: “List the top 10 software technology companies in the U.S. based on revenue, and include their top products”
  💡This prompt could be more targeted by including a particular industry, type of solution, or other aspect
  🛠️Tools: ChatGPT, Claude

✅ Find potential customers

• You can generate lists of LinkedIn profiles of your target customer based on several criteria, such as job title, industry, and location
  🛠️Tools: Clay, Waalaxy

✅ Set up an automation

• If you can imagine it, you might be able to automate it
• Simple example: When X event happens, send an email to someone or add a row of data to a spreadsheet
  🛠️Tools: Make, n8n, Gumloop, Lindy

💡The tools listed above are only a subset of what’s available and I’m not recommending any specific tool over any other

Example: In under 2 minutes, V0 created a landing page 👇

Note: I sped up the middle of the recording while code was being generated
(the original length was under 2 minutes)

💡Once you’ve created a prototype (e.g., landing page or web app),
you can prompt the AI tool to make adjustments and refine the solution

Many AI-powered tools have a free account option to try the capabilities and determine value, and some allow for a generous amount of free usage that you may never surpass.

There are some great resources to learn more about the current state of AI and where things are heading, including “2024: The State of Generative AI in the Enterprise” (from Menlo Ventures), this list of AI tools (from a16z’s Consumer Team), and Allie Miller’s newsletter.

If you’re in product management, you may find it useful to subscribe to the GenAI PM newsletter, dig into Tal Raviv’s tactical content about leveraging AI, or take Colin Matthews’ online course. Or you can just watch a few short videos on YouTube to see demos of tools you want to learn how to use well.

While I don’t believe we’re facing a complete replacement of certain roles from humans to machines, we’re already seeing a drop in certain roles that AI has reduced the need for (e.g., customer support, research), and there’s an opportunity to not only catch up but to excel in this developing landscape.

Pick one AI tool from the links above and try it today. Experiment, iterate, and see how it fits into your workflow — you’ll be ahead of the curve before you know it! 🚀