The Death of Product Management
Product management, at least as we've formally known it, is dead.
That might sound dramatic, but it's no different than when project managers saw their discipline shaken by agile. The same thing is happening now. The traditional PM role defined by backlog grooming, stakeholder wrangling, and endless roadmap iterations is dissolving. Not because the work isn't essential, but because automation, AI, and leaner teams are doing it faster and cleaner without the human overhead.
Why the old playbook no longer works
I've lived the classic PM toolkit: JIRA dashboards, PI planning, KPIs, user stories, dependency tracking. It was valuable, but it was also fragile. The model is overly dependent on humans to stitch together dozens of moving parts. Hence the never-ending, all-day corporate meeting that has become far too common.
Today, user stories and acceptance criteria can be written in a fraction of the time with the right tools. Market research can be automated. Feature specs that used to take weeks now take days. Product management is getting an overhaul.
The PM as glue is being replaced by tools that are better at sticking things together.
The new era of product multipliers
So what replaces the role? A new archetype: the Product Multiplier.
First, I'd like to talk about why I'm using this term and where it comes from. This concept isn't new. In product circles, Marty Cagan has written about Product Ops as a "force multiplier" for product teams. Others have talked about the "multiplier effect" in terms of how strong product managers can amplify the work of everyone around them. Even outside of tech, economics uses "multipliers" to describe exponential effects.
This archetype builds on that lineage but points forward. The PM who doesn't just manage backlogs, but multiplies outcomes by combining customer insight, data fluency, AI-powered workflows, and systems thinking. It's a deliberate evolution of the role that is less about being the glue and more about being the amplifier.
A product multiplier doesn't just manage requirements; they amplify outcomes. They translate customer insights, data fluency, and AI tooling into products that feel inevitable. They're less backlog babysitter, more systems architect and product engineer.
Skills defining this era
- AI fluency: From prompt engineering and workflow automation to evaluation harnessing, knowing how to bend AI in meaningful and efficient ways
- Data intuition: Reading signals, running experiments, forming hypotheses that drive decisions
- Systems thinking: Understanding how product connects to the business model, human behavior, and tech stack
- Cross-domain literacy: The ability to pull insights from fields outside of software and apply them intelligently and creatively to innovate in product work
Real examples
Rebecca Beach, a UX designer, makes $20k/month building AI-assisted digital products solo. StackBlitz was dying, launched Bolt (an AI coding tool), and hit $4 million ARR in 30 days. Companies like Cursor and Perplexity built $200 million businesses with lean teams by layering smart product decisions on top of LLMs.
These aren't outliers. They're proof that a focused team with the right tools moves faster than traditional product orgs.
But most companies aren't building AI wrappers. They're building SaaS, marketplaces, fintech, logistics platforms. Those still need PMs who understand stakeholders, navigate politics, and ship incremental value without torching the roadmap.
The old skills aren't useless. They're just not enough anymore.
Who thrives, who falls behind
The PMs who thrive will be those who design, prototype, experiment, and can get weird in order to multiply their impact with technology.
The ones who fall behind? Those clinging to old methods and positioning themselves merely as team translators.
Where we're headed
The next five years will highlight and elevate product management, with a widening gap between those who pivot and those who don't.
The future PM will be part strategist, part builder, part storyteller, and part experimenter—generating clarity independently and creating products that are faster, sharper, more avant-garde, and unmistakably prescient.
A call to action
Ask yourself: Am I augmenting my craft with storytelling, AI-powered efficiency, data that matters, innovation, and experimentation? Or am I being left behind?
Product management isn't dying. It's leveling up.
And the only question left is: Are you?
Originally published on Nothing But Static