In the News
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Product Manager Job Postings Are Up 12%. So Is the Fear That AI Is Coming for Them
Survey of 1,500 chief product officers predicts the role will be obsolete by 2030, while hiring data shows the opposite. Coach says the fear is doing more career damage than the technology.
BOSTON — Product management is receiving two irreconcilable messages.
The 2026 CPO Insights Report, drawing on a survey of more than 1,500 chief product officers, concluded that the product manager role as it exists today will be obsolete by 2030. Meanwhile, hiring data reported by LinkedIn and Lenny's Newsletter in early 2026 showed product manager postings worldwide up 12%, the highest level in three years.
Between those two facts sits a workforce that has become measurably more frightened. Surveys tracking AI job-loss anxiety found concern rising from 28% to 40% between 2024 and 2026, with anxiety levels up 43% in under two years and the fear most concentrated among mid-career white-collar professionals.
Shobhit Chugh, a former Google product manager who now coaches product managers on their careers, said the fear itself has become the more urgent problem.
"They're not ignoring AI. That's the thing people get wrong," Chugh said. "They're reading everything about it, and it has frozen them."
Chugh said the pattern is consistent among the people who come to him.
"They open a guide about upskilling in AI and it tells them to learn RAG, build an evaluation set, ship a portfolio project in ninety days. Then they open another one that says something different. By the fourth guide they've stopped."
He said the freezing is what creates the actual risk.
"The PMs who get displaced usually aren't displaced by a model. They're displaced because they spent eight months researching instead of shipping judgment," Chugh said. "The work that AI can't do is exactly the work they stopped doing while they were panicking about AI."
Analysis from BCG published this year found AI is reshaping more product roles than it eliminates, with a split emerging between strategic roles that are expanding and execution-focused roles being compressed. Research synthesis, first-draft documentation and competitive analysis are increasingly automated. Judgment, cross-functional decision-making and customer insight are not.
Chugh said the practical advice most PMs receive misreads their situation.
"Everyone is handing them a curriculum. What they need is one thing to do this week that reconnects them to the part of the job a model can't do," he said.
He said the layoffs of the past two years compounded it, particularly for people whose ability to remain in the country depends on their employment.
"There's a version of this conversation that happens with someone on a visa who has weeks rather than months," Chugh said. "The advice to go and learn fine-tuning is not useful to that person."
Chugh spent his career in product roles at Google, Lattice Engines and Tamr before founding Intentional Product Manager, and hosts a podcast interviewing product leaders.
Media Contact
Shobhit Chugh
[email protected]
(781) 628-5138
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Half of Tech Job Postings May Not Be Real. Product Managers Are Blaming Themselves Anyway
Hires-per-posting ratio has halved since 2019. Coach says the psychological damage of a broken application process is outlasting the job search itself.
BOSTON — A product manager applies to sixty roles over five months. Two-thirds produce no response at all. By month six, the conclusion is obvious and wrong.
Analysis published in the Columbia Law Review found the ratio of hires to job postings has halved since 2019, falling from roughly eight hires per ten postings to four. In information and technology, the analysis put the share of postings that were effectively not being filled at around 48%.
Separate industry surveys have found the practice is widespread. A LiveCareer survey of 918 human resources professionals found 93% said their employer posts roles it does not intend to fill soon, with 45% describing it as a regular practice.
Shobhit Chugh, a former Google product manager who coaches product managers through career transitions, said the numbers matter less than what candidates conclude from them.
"Nobody in this position blames the market," Chugh said. "They apply to sixty things, hear nothing, and decide the problem is them. That conclusion does more damage than the unemployment does."
Job seekers report submitting an average of 62.6 applications and spending roughly 44 minutes on each, according to survey data published this year. That amounts to more than a full working week spent on applications alone. Greenhouse's candidate research found 72% of job seekers say the process harms their mental health.
Chugh said the damage compounds because it is invisible.
"A senior PM who has shipped serious products starts second-guessing whether they can do the job at all," he said. "Then they walk into an interview carrying that, and the interviewer feels it without being able to name it."
He said the practical shift is away from volume.
"The application is the least effective thing you can do and it feels like the most productive," Chugh said. "It has a button. It gives you a number that goes up. Meanwhile the roles that get filled are filled through people."
The tech market itself is not empty. Layoffs have declined from their 2023 peak, and product manager postings worldwide were reported up 12% in early 2026, the highest level in three years. But overall tech hiring remains below pre-pandemic levels, and displaced workers are competing against each other for a narrower set of real openings.
Chugh said the timeline pressure varies enormously between candidates.
"An average search is running around six months. Some people can absorb that. Somebody whose visa status depends on employment cannot," he said. "The advice you give those two people should not be the same, and usually it is."
He said the first thing he asks a client is rarely about their resume.
"I ask what they've stopped doing," Chugh said. "Almost always the answer is talking to people, because talking to people while you feel like a failure is unbearable. That's the thing that actually needed to keep happening."
Chugh spent his career in product roles at Google, Lattice Engines and Tamr before founding Intentional Product Manager, and hosts a podcast interviewing product leaders.
Media Contact
Shobhit Chugh
[email protected]
(781) 628-5138
More From Intentional Product Manager
- How Do I Build an AI-First Product Organization?
- Do CPOs Even Care About AI?
- How Do I Move From Execution to Strategic Influence in the AI Era?
- What Does Product Leadership Look Like Inside an AI Company?
- How Do I Stand Out in the AI-Era PM Job Market?
- What Does the AI PM Job Market Actually Look Like Right Now?
- How Do I Break Into AI Product Management?
- What Does It Actually Take to Land an AI PM Role at a Company Like Meta?
