The Era of the PM is Over, The Era of the Producer is Coming

In the content industry, represented by film and broadcasting, there is a job title called 'Producer'. In Korean, it can be translated as a creator or maker. While a director handles the detailed aspects, a producer oversees the overall production and planning. I first encountered this role in dramas and movies, but I faced it in reality while working at Nexon Korea. At Nexon, the person in charge of a specific game title is given the title "General Director," and when developing a new game, they are given the title "Producer." Depending on whether 'Chief' is attached, they might be called CD or CP, but the distinction between director and producer is made based on how directly they are involved in production. A director deals with the overall view, while a producer is responsible for the process of delivery to the consumer. This is not a difference in height (hierarchy), but a difference in width (scope).

The reason I mention this is that as artificial intelligence technology becomes more common, this concept of "Producer" is gradually taking root in the product/service market. In fact, the concept of a Product Producer is not new. As someone who thought critically about the PO craze when it blew over, I am not trying to coin a new term. Literally, the job group previously called Planner or Product Manager now goes beyond product planning and detailed decision-making; they must know how to draw wireframes with Figma, organize datasets, and their scope of work and role has expanded to the development stack. The job group called Planner or PM is required to be an all-around problem solver in the IT industry, handling design, content sense, data analysis, and media management like a marketer, and even doing PR.

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky's mention of the uselessness of PMs is in the same context. The uselessness of planners has always been a recurring theme. However, someone was needed to connect various job groups and make them look in the same direction. In the past, Leaders of each job group would hand down duties through meetings, but now, as the structure changes to a transparent and horizontal one, Project Managers and others are taking on these roles. This is also why methods like Scrum based on Agile are mentioned as possible in small organizations. I want to emphasize that the concept of PO (Product Owner) is just a role that appears in the Scrum methodology, not an independent job title.

In fact, Jeff Sutherland, the founder of Scrum and Agile methodology, defined the role of the PO as the person responsible within the project, and some companies have expressed concern about the PO being perceived as an all-around solver. A PO is a role that works properly only when given strong responsibility and authority in a small organization. The PO manages the product backlog and sets the direction of the product between the team and stakeholders. (I have never seen a PO organization work properly in Korea, except for Toss and Coupang. Of course, this might be because my perspective is narrow.) This is not a specific job title but merely a responsibility within a project, and it can easily be integrated into the more comprehensive role of 'Producer'. Please stop making up new words and use the existing ones.

Some companies in Korea have put forward job titles such as Problem Solver, but they have not made much progress. After all, every job and profession exists to solve other people's problems and have that effort and trouble converted into economic value. It didn't work to use something obvious as a job title. If you look at places looking for a Problem Solver position, they mostly look for people who have been through all sorts of hardships or early startup members. Once they find the field they need to focus on to some extent, they will naturally change to hiring professional job groups. This is simply a clumsy expression, and there is no need to mock it.

• Business Development, Alliance: Domain understanding, alliance sales, marketing, and PR
• Infrastructure Planning, Design: API, server design, detailed spec organization, development schedule organization
• User Perspective Design, Utilization: Service design, data analysis, user testing, UX Writing
• Creative, Visual Quality: Design system, branding, concept, image

To conclude on the uselessness of planners, are planners really unnecessary? The answer has to be "Yes." However, this is not because a specific job group is unnecessary, but because the role of a planner is changing into a more organic and comprehensive way. For example, a 'Producer' can integrate various roles such as Product Designer, Developer, and Graphic Designer, overseeing the overall view of product planning, development, design, and marketing. This is a structure where each job group has individual responsibilities, but the Producer plays a central role in integrating and coordinating them, enabling more efficient product development and delivery. It might feel unpleasant right now, but this is the set course. Planners will become increasingly unnecessary. Instead, the work of a planner will be split and given to designers or Project Managers, and the role of the producer who oversees this as a whole will grow. Instead of introducing a new term, I intend to integrate it neatly with the concept of Producer. It is not that a specific job group is unnecessary, but that the roles are changing in a more organic and comprehensive way. The qualities of a producer who covers the area of actual product delivery will be required in all fields.

PM's Core Responsibilities: The three remain the same, but the way of doing them has changed completely

The three core roles of a traditional PM are:

1. Understanding the customer's problem
2. Prioritizing to decide which problem to solve
3. Organizing and delivering effective solutions

AI does not break this structure, but the execution method of each step has changed innovatively.

Understand: The problem itself changes

✅ Expansion of the Problem Space

Problems that were previously "given up due to technical limitations" have now entered the realm where they can be solved with AI. In fact, customers don't directly speak of needs they think are "impossible" before experiencing them themselves. In the case of Canva, customers didn't say "I want to make designs easily with AI," but once the feature was released, it established itself as the desired solution.

✅ Evolution of Data Analysis Methods

Qualitative data scattered across customer interviews, support tickets, and chatbot conversations can now be analyzed in real-time and automatically with AI tools. It goes beyond simply gathering insights to detecting trends as they happen like news and providing deep insights.

Prioritize: It's not a question of 'Can we do it?', but 'Is it worth it?'

AI shakes up all existing evaluation items of "feasibility, impact, risk, cost".

• Feasibility: Thanks to AI, features that were impossible in the past can now be implemented within weeks.
• Impact: Like Duolingo's real-time lesson difficulty adjustment, personalization becomes a strategy.
• Risk: Risk factors unique to AI such as hallucination, bias, and regulatory issues are added.
• Cost: It may look cheap at first, but costs can explode as usage increases.

Survey results show that AI assistant features were actually not chosen by 64% of users. If you force features that customers don't want, trust in the product itself can be shaken.

Execution: AI is beyond a simple auxiliary function, it is a core means of designing experience

Previously, AI was attached as just an 'additional feature', but now it becomes the driving force to redesign the entire production experience.

• Ramp: Automates expense classification, providing a UX where the user doesn't need to intervene
• Grammarly: Analyzes sentence context and tone to even support rewriting
• Shopify: Automatically generates entire marketing copy with just product photos and simple descriptions

The key is that AI assistants can go beyond simple functional convenience to create new experiences.

Strategic Perspective: Bundling vs Specialization — "The boundaries of competition have collapsed"

AI breaks down existing category boundaries. It's an era where CRM includes content generation functions, and PM tools embed community functions, invading each other's territories.

Now the important strategic question for a PM is:

• Will you provide greater value through bundling?
• Will you remain an expert specialized in a specific area?

What is important here is not each function, but "In what way do we deliver the value of problem-solving to the customer?"

Change Response Strategy: Re-examine the Roadmap from an AI Perspective

• What features were impossible 12 months ago but are possible now?
• What AI features are emerging in competitor/adjacent markets?
• What are the problem-solving opportunities made possible by AI that customers don't expect yet?
• AI does not change the role of the PM itself. However, it has completely changed the way that role is performed.
• The core question remains the same. 👉 "What value can this feature truly give to the customer?"