Product Management Goals in the Age of AI: Why these Goals Fall Flat : INSEAD

The hype surrounding Product Management Goals began innocently enough. After the pandemic, as markets reopened and sentiment surged, technology companies saw explosive growth. Venture capital flowed abundantly, and Product Managers were considered the new rock stars. They did not code, sell or design, but somehow they were hailed as the “CEOs of their products.” And who would not want to be a CEO without the downside of actually running a company?

But then, as global uncertainty rose and interest rates climbed, funding dried up and the tech industry saw a wave of layoffs. Those who had once glorified the PM life soon found that instead of “owning product vision,” they were often assigned to “fixing bugs and updating dashboards.” Many came to the sobering realization that PMing was but about convincing leadership that the product roadmap should not, in fact, change every two weeks.

And just as this reset was happening, AI arrived, reshaping AI product management and redefining expectations.

Today, AI can summarize research, draft PRDs, analyze metrics, and suggest product ideas in minutes. Tasks that once took hours can now be done almost instantly, fundamentally shifting AI in product management strategy.

The implication is hard to ignore because project or product execution is no longer a PM’s edge. The value of a product manager does not lie in managing tasks, but in exercising judgment. AI can generate solutions, but in most cases today, it cannot necessarily decide which problem is worth solving. It cannot make trade-offs in a messy, real-world context.

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Why Adcoms Cringe at Shallow Product Management Goals, and why talking about AI is no longer optional.

Nothing bores adcoms more than applicants defaulting to product management goals without depth. During our routine ding analysis discussions, we go through tonnes of the same outdated essays with empty glorifications of product management roles, without any real sense of purpose. Applicants need to understand that product management goals in AI era is a broad field. If your application strategy is to vaguely mention a few product management-like projects in your pre MBA career and then propose full-bodied product management goals, you will be very disappointed.

Many candidates I talk to lack a clear understanding of how the PM role actually works. In most organizations, especially startups and in-growth phase companies, Product Managers rely heavily on inputs from strategy, finance, and operations teams to develop systems and products that can scale the company’s operations.

For example, in the healthcare or health tech companies or startups, most of the industry knowledge resides with frontline healthcare professionals and strategists, so the work of Product Managers is often focused on enabling systems to support the business, rather than developing the iconic strategies themselves—an important reality within AI product management environments.

So, what can we learn from similar examples about how applicants should pitch Product Management goals?

Aspiring product managers should convey a mindset that refuses to accept inefficiencies as the status quo. The best product managers are not those who wax poetic in B school essays about how much they “love” product management. They are the ones who see a fundamental problem in an industry and recognize how a technology-enabled solution can change the game. In the context of MBA applications, they frame problems, evaluate trade-offs and connect business context, user insight, and technological possibilities into something coherent—especially in the evolving landscape of AI in product management strategy.

An example would be to show how Technology-Enabled Solutions Can Bridge Critical Gaps

When done right, Product Management has the power to transform entire populations, as seen in India’s successful battle to eradicate polio, where a complex, nationwide technology-based system was meticulously orchestrated to track every individual, mobilize resources, and ensure no child was left behind.

Another example could be to show how Revolutionizing Sectors by Empowering Key Community Players with Strategic Insights

If you think about smallholder farmers who are being squeezed by middlemen and losing a big chunk of their income, an end-to-end smart supply chain product could redefine fair prices and access. Even more powerful would be enabling farmers with predictive AI insights on crop choices, costs, and returns based on demand and seasonality—clearly reflecting product management goals in AI era.

Think deeply about why you want to become a product manager. Then when pitching your product management goals, center your narrative around a problem you are committed to solving. Demonstrate to the admissions committees your deep awareness of a critical gap or challenge in the market, and articulate the far-reaching consequences if left unaddressed.
That is exactly what admissions committees are evaluating. Not your familiarity with tools. Not your ability to use jargon.

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