My 2025 Goal – Become an AI Native PM
Over the last few years, thanks to the advent of GenAI, Product Management is one of the areas that has seen many valuable iterative enhancements and incremental changes in the tools we use. These enhancements are usually positioned as transformational – like “Transforming Product Management with GenAI” through writing better user stories or helping digest customer feedback.
This approach makes sense. Vendors of legacy PM tools have spent decades and billions of dollars in refining how we work—better reports, improved sprints, structured Stories and Acceptance Criteria. Now, GenAI is being injected into these existing workflows, making incremental improvements.
But this isn’t transformation; it’s paving the cow path. Instead of creating new highways, we’re automating JIRA ticket writing or refining PRDs or summarizing Sprints in DevOps. These changes that are often called "AI enabling the PM" optimize old processes, rather than creating new ways of working. Whereas “AI Native” means reimagining workflows from the ground up – from first principles – a place where AI leads how it happens.
To me being an AI enabled PM isn't sincerely transformational about how Product Managers do our jobs. It’s iterative enhancements that make doing what we do, in the tools and processes we have, a bit easier and faster. Good to have, helpful and useful – but not truly transforming how we work.
Because of this, I’ve decided that to truly innovate as a Product Manager, I need to re-architect myself. I need to create new workflows that are AI Native, not just AI enabled. I need to go back to PM first principles.
I need to reinvent myself as an AI Native PM
So far in 2025 I’ve completed two projects as a newly self-minted AI Native Product Manager. And while not perfect, I’ve learned a lot and I know I’m just going to get better and better and better.
Project 1: Redefine a UX
Completed in under 2 hours.
I wanted to investigate a model of selling AI Agents and apps in a credit model. To do this I needed a clear definition of what needs to change in the existing UX, both visually and as Epics, Stories and User Acceptance Criteria.
Approaching as an AI Native Product Manager, I followed this four step process. And in under 2 hours I had a prototype updated UX, and the complete set of developer requirements for estimating the effort:
Specific details on the prompts are in my Github repo: https://github.com/pohagan72/Prompt_Library/tree/main/GenAI_Management_Console_UX_Update
Project 2: Create a new feature
Completed in under 4 hours.
A customer asked about a feature to translate content in images. They wanted the words translated and a new version of the image generated with the translations superimposed.
Approaching as an AI Native Product Manager, I followed this four step process. And in under 4 hours I had a prototype app, and the documented requirements for estimating the effort:
More details including the GenAI generated python and example prompts are in this repo: https://github.com/pohagan72/Inline-Image-Translation
A Journey to AI Native Product Management
Reinventing myself, after 25 years of Product Management experience, to be an AI Native PM isn’t going to happen in Q1. This is going to be a long journey where I’m going to make spectacular mistakes – and learn from each and every one of them.
But I’m convinced. I’m absolutely convinced that to be a next generation Product Manager I have to become AI native. I need to create new frameworks and processes that enable me to innovate in new ways, using the newest of innovative technologies.
As I continue to experiment, learn, and rearchitect myself into being an AI Native PM, I hope other PMs will ask themselves: Are you just injecting AI into your old workflows, or are you rethinking from first principles about how we define and build products?
Sentient AI Product Manager came to mind when I read this, Paul, either way, good luck with your pursuit!