Welcome to the 3rd issue of The Street Smart Edge, the free micro-newsletter of the Street Smart Product Manager. Each week, I send 1-2 posts that help you boost your confidence, stay focused, and reconnect with what really matters. For in-depth, proven actionable tactics that go beyond frameworks and transform how stakeholders perceive your value, and to join our community events, consider becoming a paid subscriber or Inner Circle member.
In the past year, LinkedIn has been flooded with posts about ‘AI prototyping’ and ‘AI product managers.’
PM Slack groups are filled with “Look what I built with AI!” posts, and podcasts are booking anyone even loosely connected to AI.
Demonstrating AI prototyping skills or an understanding of AI technology is now happening in job interviews.
Here’s the catch: AI prototyping alone won’t land you a PM job. And it won’t get you promoted.
At the end of the day, these AI tools are just that — tools. Just like Jira, Agile, or Figma. Tools don’t get us hired or recognized. Impact does.
What Decision Makers Really Care About
Executives and hiring managers aren’t losing sleep wondering if their PMs can generate prototypes with AI. They’re asking bigger questions:
Is this PM helping us win and retain customers?
Do they understand how to connect customer insights to commercial results?
Are they moving the needle on the business?
So why do we get asked about AI prototyping, LLMs, and agentic AI?
These questions are really about checking if we understand the latest technology trends and apply them to business scenarios. So, learning these skills alone won’t tell someone if we’ve got what it takes to actually get the job done.
If our resume, interview answers, performance reviews, product proposals, leadership presentations, and even status updates highlight only the tasks we’ve accomplished or the tools we’ve mastered, we’ll get overlooked.
Good Work Doesn’t Speak for Itself
If we’re not actively making the impact of our work visible, we’re not just invisible — we’re actively hiding.
So many Product Managers are working hard and getting things done. The problem is they assume their boss or hiring manager will connect the dots to business impact. They usually won’t. And, often, can’t. We have to connect the dots for them.
That’s why good PMs get passed over for promotions and strong resumes end up in the rejection pile.
The Fix: Tell Business Stories
We need to translate our work into the language decision-makers care about: money.
Here’s a simple storytelling approach shared by Nils Davis, a 30-year product management veteran and experienced PM career coach:
Problem – What was the customer or business problem?
Solution – What did we do to solve it?
Transformation – What measurable impact did it have?
Here’s how the same work sounds with business impact built in:
❌ “I used AI tools to redesign onboarding. User satisfaction improved.”
✅ “40% of new customers were churning in 32 days, costing $0.5 million in monthly recurring revenue. I redesigned our onboarding, cutting churn to 5% and adding $X in MRR.”
Same project. Different story. One reads like a task. The other shows clear business impact.
Key Takeaway
By all means, learn AI prototyping. Stay current with new tools. But don’t mistake tools for outcomes. New tools won’t get us hired or promoted. Impact will.
Our value as Product Managers is our ability to connect our work to business results. And to tell those stories in a way that resonates with decision-makers.
Here’s a short video I created (yes, using AI) that goes into this in more detail:
Have a joyful week, and, if you can, make it joyful for someone else too.
cheers,
shardul
Whenever you’re ready, there are 4 ways I can help you:
Paid Subscription or Inner Circle Membership: Get weekly battle-tested real-world PM tactics and strategies to take control of your career, plus exclusive access to live Q&As, events, and roundtables. We’re not just building a community, we’re building a movement. Join here.
One Week Product Roadmap: Learn to design a clear, outcome-driven roadmap in just 7 days — fast, practical, and stakeholder-ready. Read the reviews here.
Corporate Training & Strategy Workshops: Transform scattered priorities into a clear, actionable strategy through a customized workshop or level up your product team to think strategically, craft impactful roadmaps, and deliver results that matter. Book a call.
Improv Based Team Building Workshop: Boost creativity, trust, and collaboration through improv. Your team will problem-solve faster and work better together. Book a call.
Shardul Mehta
I ❤️ product managers
Help out a colleague by forwarding this article to them.