Valerio Zanini

AI for Product Managers

Leverage Artificial Intelligence to Build Great Products

AI is reshaping industries and products. This book helps Product Managers understand how to use AI tools to plan, design, and deliver great products. It explains the AI stack and strategic frameworks to decide how to integrate AI features into products; how to use GenAI to perform customer discovery and market research; it presents tools for prototyping and validation of product MVPs; and it explains how the Product Development Life Cycle and the Model Development Life Cycle intersect when creating AI-driven products.

This is not a theoretical textbook based on research: it is a practical guide for Product Managers to learn what AI can do and to implement AI technologies into their products. Various use cases are discussed to analyze real-life applications. Practical frameworks are presented to help make decisions on what type of AI to use, on the cost structure and business model to adopt, on the key metrics to track to ensure that value is delivered to customers.

AI does not replace Product Managers: it expands and empowers them. Traditional Product Management practices are still important. Product Managers are not supposed to become data scientists by building complex data models that drive AI algorithms, but with this book they will learn the foundational aspects to make informed decisions on their products – and work more closely with data scientists and engineering teams.

The book is GREAT! It’s a relatable, easy, and “just right” depth of read for me (and I would assume product managers!). It covers the essentials and gives great examples. (Kert Peterson – CST, AKT)

Exceptional work. Great structure, great balance between keeping a broad overview and providing details, great applicability to a PM’s work. Well done! (Johannes Schartau – Author, CSP)

Table of Contents

PART I: FOUNDATIONS

AI Fundamentals for Product Managers (The 20% You Actually Need)
Exploring the AI Stack and Your Strategic Options
The Data Foundation (Why Your Data Strategy Matters More Than Your Model Choice)

PART II: USING AI TO ACCELERATE YOUR PM JOB

How AI Transforms the PM Job and the PDLC
GenAI-Powered Customer Discovery
GenAI for Market Research
GenAI for Product Ideation and Validation

PART III: THE ART OF BUILDING AI PRODUCTS

AI Product Sense
The AI Product Development Process
Choosing the Right AI Approach
Quality, Testing, and Evals
Metrics for AI Products
Cost Structure of AI Products

PART IV: FOSTERING AN AI CULTURE IN THE ORGANIZATION

Transforming the Organization
Driving the AI Adoption

Author

Valerio Zanini, CPIT, CST, MBA

Read Valerio’s bio

More Resources from the Book

21 Principles of AI Adoption

3 Dimensions of AI products

Duolingo case study

BMW case study

JP Morgan Chase case study

All GenAI prompts discussed in the book can be downloaded and used freely by using the QR code contained in the book.