Don't be a product copy, be a unique cat!
- pfeffer
- May 4
- 3 min read
My profession at heart is Product Management . That job profile pretty much got reshuffled with the rise of AI and the sheer abundancy of AI tools . Interestingly enough the key skills I have always considered of value to be a good product manager are not really changing that much.
With two important differences:
One - much more DIY
You have tools now to do stuff yourself where you needed a lot of help before.
Building prototypes , visualising product ideas ? Easy if you can write requirements in a proper manner as that translates pretty well to being able to actually instruct Vibecoding tools what they should do.
Debugging yourself ? I mean not myself, but me actually doing debugging of the stuff you produce with AI. If you can read code a bit you can actually get quite far.
So the job of a product manager is getting much more creative because one can visualise things much much faster and more is in your own hands. That is quite awesome if you create things. And it puts you in the position that you can give something tangible to a developer which a professional can complete. There is a big difference between product creation and having a product commercially operational.
AI-Tool Expertise does not necessarily give you the skills to build great products . Much more likely you have a mediocre one at best.
That brings me to
Two - you will be copied easily
All the tools and the intelligence contained are quite useless if you cannot express what you want or need. If you have been an average product manager before, you will be even more average now, as you have a lot more average competition, unless you learn some new tricks. You will find many claude skills. you will not find the key skill there, which had you keep your job until now.
Bottomline. All the AI tools will not teach you class. If you dont have something of unique value, you will be copied.
Probably the best statement I have read all year is the following from Mark Hinckley (The Gentlemen Creatives)
In a world of AI-generated mediocrity, taste becomes a competitive advantage. When everything looks polished, nothing feels distinctive.
This is absolutely and fundamentally true in product development as well. Welcome to the age of copycats!
It has become very easy to copy digital products. At least on an a casual usage. If you dont need enterprise-grade products, you can go far with your own product-builds. That will be the end of some tools which are in pretty standard use now . My bets are on Miro , Wix, Postman and more being gone for the casual use as you will find a gazillion copies of them. The standard web-site setup is no problem anymore to self-create if you know how to get your own server. Everyone can copy everything.
Product differentation will focus on ease-of-use, product packaging or deep specialisation. Aka distinction!
What to do with these "relevations" ?
Being a generation X kid and a Sci-Fi aficionado with having read pretty much everything from William Gibson to Philip K. Dick , let me add a word of advice here:
Be open-minded but alert.
I read a statement or quote somewhere that the same generation not wanting to give cookie consent is now happy to give any AI tool access to the desktop.
Not necessarily a bad thing .
If you have time at your hands, there is a lot to try , a lot to learn these days. I have used and worked with more digital tools in the last 2 years than in the 25 years before and shelved the majority of it for lack of real use case.
Dont get trapped in the FIMO machine. There is a new tool around the corner every day, new and better LLM models , new tools popping up by the minute. You can't test them all. You don't need to. You need to understand first what you what to change to find the right AI-tool to maybe change it yourself
As the song goes :
The Times They Are a-Changin'
The way products are built is changing. My job has.
Finding uniqueness amidst copycats is an asset !
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