How to thrive as a Product Marketer in the age of AI

The day that my State of AI in Product Marketing Report 2025 went live, a product marketer reached out to me*. His entire PMM team at a large SaaS company had just been laid off, due to “AI-driven efficiencies.” Leadership believed that AI could handle product launches faster and cheaper, so they let the whole team go.

And that sounds scary. Because if one company can do this, what does it mean for the rest of us? But here’s the part that’s overlooked: when I dug deeper, it became clear the team wasn’t being set up to deliver on the full potential of product marketing.  They were being used primarily as launch machines: collecting inputs, doing project management, building decks, pushing assets.

In that context, it’s not surprising that leadership believed AI could take over. And honestly, if that’s all PMM is, then yes, AI might appear to be a logical replacement.

But what got lost in the rush to “automate” was the point of PMM in the first place. The strategic work that PMMs do best didn’t disappear. The customer insights, positioning, GTM planning, and narrative development still needed to happen. But they just got scattered and redistributed to other teams (if at all). 

Not surprisingly, the company is not doing well and is struggling to keep market share in an increasingly competitive market, failing to stand out from a sea of look-alikes and new competitors. 

*Story shared with permission

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Over the past few months, I’ve had PMMs and leaders ask me some version of the same question: Is AI going to replace product marketing?

And honestly, I’ve never seen this level of panic before.

So, instead of just sharing my own take, I went straight to the source: practicing PMMs. This report reflects insights from over 200 of you, across industries, company stages, and regions, who generously shared your experiences. Thank you.

And as the report shows, and what I deeply believe, is this:

The most valuable product marketers are driving business strategy. 

And that is not going away. However, the role is shifting. 

Here’s what the data shows, which I have summarized into 4 key takeaways: 

Takeaway 1: AI is saving time, but not replacing thinking in product marketing.

Even just a year ago, PMMs were telling me they were just dabbling in AI. But that is not the case today. AI usage is now ubiquitous among PMMs, with 95% of PMMs using AI every week and 72% using it daily. PMMs report saving 2–7+ hours per week on average, with the most common use cases being:

• Copywriting and content repurposing

• Synthesizing research

• Generating early drafts and decks

Clearly, AI is made to automate time-consuming and repetitive tasks that don’t require significant strategic trade-offs. Yet, respondents also shared that even for these tasks, AI still requires editing, brand calibration, and deep contextualization, not to mention ensuring the results are accurate and free of hallucinations.

This means that while AI can save time on repetitive tasks, a level of human oversight is still necessary, even for the most basic and repetitive outputs.

“Nearly all of our clients are using LLMs for copywriting or analysis, but the most advanced are experimenting with agentic tools and full content automation. We default to NotebookLM for analysis because it respects client privacy, unlike most other tools.

The thing is, AI sounds polished but not human. It’s like reading a script instead of having a conversation. The best work comes from blending AI with brand personality and real human nuance, because fewer words don’t always mean better resonance. And that's what we aim to do."

— Jonathan Pipek, Founder of Blue Manta Consulting (a PMM consultancy)

Takeaway 2: Human judgment, strategy, and influence are the moat. 

When it comes to more complex tasks that require human judgment, AI struggles. Respondents shared that the hardest tasks to replicate include cross-functional collaboration, strategy, systems-level thinking, customer insight, and creative judgment.  These are all core to high-impact PMM work, and are what sets great PMMs apart from the rest. 

If your role today consists of the full spectrum of PMM work, including gathering customer insights, setting positioning/messaging and GTM strategy, then you have a great chance to stand out by honing in on those skills. However, if what you are doing is more tactical, and coincides with what AI already does well (summarizing inputs, churning out content, executing requests), then you are at risk. As I shared at the start, some teams have already been let go under the banner of “AI-driven efficiency.”

My friend Martina Lauchengco said it best:

“AI now does a better job than many non-strategic PMMs, especially those who simply translate what the product team says into marketing language. I watched a VP of Product use AI to turn his own docs into collateral, and honestly, it did a superior job than their senior PMM on the team. 

To me, this is the clarion call: AI is already as good as average. Only above-average or better PMMs, those who bring insight, strategy, and cross-functional influence, will remain essential.”

-- Martina Launchengco, Partner at Costanoa Ventures & SVPG 

Takeaway 3: Strategic PMMs are evolving into AI orchestrators

Of course, alongside sharpening their strategic skills, the best PMMs are also using AI — but they’re not just dabbling. They’re building custom workflows, training GPTs on their own materials, and creating repeatable systems that scale their impact.

In short, emotional intelligence, systems thinking, and adaptability remain key differentiators for the best PMMs, and those who combine these with smart AI use are setting a new bar for the role. As one of my PMM friends says, taste, polish, and judgment (the 20% craft) are becoming more valuable in a world where AI does the first 80%.

Takeaway 4: Tension exists for using AI, and companies need to step up to solve it. 

Lastly, let’s be real: the burden of figuring out AI shouldn’t fall entirely on individual PMMs.

In the survey, 26% reported tension or confusion around AI at work, not because they don’t see the value, but because they’re navigating unclear expectations, ethical gray areas, and mixed signals from leadership.

As one PMM put it: “Leadership wants AI for speed, then rejects the work as ‘AI drivel.’”

What PMMs need in addition to access to tools and prompt libraries are actually guidance and clarity, specifically: 

• Structured training

• Clear team policies

• Shared expectations

• Space to experiment without fear

How to thrive in the age of AI 

The single biggest takeaway for me from the report is this: the PMMs most at risk of being replaced are those only doing the kind of work AI already does well: summarizing inputs, producing assets, and repeating what the product team says. That’s exactly what happened in the layoff story I shared earlier. 

So how do you become more strategic? First, you have to join the right company. Because ultimately,  no matter how skilled you are, if you're not in a company that values real product marketing, then you're always going to be vulnerable. I recommend evaluating if you are in the right environment to succeed first, using this list of questions I’ve developed. 

Now, assuming you are in a good place, here are tips for you to thrive as an individual: 

1. Automate intentionally. Before starting to use AI for everything, break your work into parts. Use AI for speed and iteration where it helps, but own the steps that require judgment, creativity, and influence.

Here’s an example of how you can break down a launch task across that spectrum:

2. Learn to prompt well  - Don’t worry if you are not building AI agents from day 1. Instead, approach learning AI using a crawl, walk, run model. Start with 2–3 reliable prompt templates that actually work (borrow some from the report!), then gradually take courses (many of them are free on LinkedIn) to learn. 

3. Stay rooted in strategy, empathy, and influence. As discussed, the PMMs who grow their careers are the ones who influence stakeholders, think in systems, and keep the customer front and center. AI doesn’t do any of that. Find mentorship, coaching and projects to help you master skills in these areas. 

What’s Next? 

If I had it my way, every PMM would be at a company that truly gets product marketing, where insights drive strategy, AI is used responsibly, and you are empowered to do high-impact work across the full funnel.

But that’s not the reality for most people.

The truth is, many companies are still figuring out what product marketing even is, while chasing short-term wins and piling more execution on already-stretched teams. Strategic work gets deprioritized. AI is misunderstood. And talented PMMs are left trying to do more with less without a clear playbook.

This is one of the reasons I became a PMM coach. 

Over the past four years, my mission has been built around helping PMMs cut through the noise, to work smarter, not just harder. To think and operate more strategically. And to master the craft, that final 20% of clarity, taste, and good judgment that turns average work into real business impact.

This is the heart of my coaching programs, built to help you land the right role, grow with confidence, and thrive as a strategic, high-impact PMM in this changing era.

If you're ready to get support to become the kind of product marketer and leader companies can't afford to lose, just book a call to get started. 

We got this.