AI and creative teams form a powerful partnership for delivering value
Using AI to increase agility
Two years ago, we all became smarter in one big bang due to the easy way tools like Chat GPT scrambled the internet and presented knowledge within seconds. Today, it is easy to find things that took a lot of analysis and work before.
It is easier to continue paths that have been explored. AI can be a tremendous help in offering the same or similar things easier, faster cheaper. That said, at this point, AI can’t be truly creative. It can generate variations of existing concepts, but it can’t come up with novel ideas itself.
Humans do have the power of true innovation. Just look at two great examples in music: the birth of hip-hop in the 70s and 80s and the electronic dance music explosion in the 80s and 90s. These were radical shifts by creative human beings who pushed the boundaries.
In 2025 AI can produce music that echoes existing themes. AI generates music that takes the common ground of what exists today, creating something familiar but also bland and full of meaningless cliches. AI can’t generate entirely new paradigms that redefine genres or industries.
To turn it into a product management theme: at this point, AI can’t create products that are shifting away from what is currently known. But it can be a tremendous help for humans.
Humans can boost their creativity with AI
While AI has limitations in creating groundbreaking content, it has the potential to boost creativity for everyone. Creative individuals often have a better chance of pushing substantial innovations.
Studies show, however, that AI can make this gap smaller for people who find creativity to be more challenging. AI helps everyone become more creative. That said, while the truly creative people will have less benefit, they will also stay on top for the foreseeable time (until AI becomes creative and original by itself).
What does this mean for product management?
The integration of AI into Product Management ushers in a new era of decision-making and innovation. Many capacity-consuming aspects of creating products will be a lot easier with AI.
The Cynefin framework, which classifies problems into different domains, is helpful to explain this. Much work that once fell under the "complex" category may now be "complicated" or even "clear," thanks to AI's capabilities. This means that the path towards finishing that work is clearer and easier than when it used to be complex.
Much work that once fell under the "complex" category may now transition to "complicated" or even "clear," thanks to AI's capabilities.
For example, prototyping will become easier and more effective. AI can support the rapid generation of models and scenarios. AI can also take on portions of coding and testing, significantly reducing the time and effort involved in product development. On top of that, routine customer interactions can also be streamlined, improving overall customer experience and feedback.
But any journey to introduce new products or features that make you stand out from the rest requires people to embark on the unknown. To discover new ways and explore the unknown, we need the creative power of talented people working in teams. When we can’t find a quick answer via AI, we need to find out step by step, reflecting, learning and pivoting.
A Shift Towards Cross-Functional Teams
When routine work can be delegated to AI, product teams will change. The focus will shift toward building truly cross-functional teams, focused on innovation and quick adaption. With AI accelerating the development of products, we can have shorter feedback loops to quickly understand what resonates with customers and what does not.
Does this sound familiar? Yes! This is an opportunity to embrace agility while using AI to make our product creation lives easier. As I mentioned in a previous article, teams can focus beyond software engineering to work on the product as a whole.
Conclusion
AI in itself is no threat to Agile ways of working. It can act as a powerful complement. Granted, we will see a shift in work as AI will be able to do work we used to do but better and faster. However, the human superpower compared to AI remains creativity.
Human ingenuity enriched with AI can be the key to unlocking groundbreaking innovations in product management. The future of product creation is not only about technology but especially about the creative human minds that drive it.
