Part One — The New Landscape

The technical bar for products is vanishing faster than anyone predicted. As AI democratizes functionality, design — not features — becomes the competitive edge.

Back in 2015, being a Product Manager without technical chops felt like playing with one hand tied behind your back.

“Learn to code,” they’d say. “Understand the stack,” they’d insist.

The message was clear: technical knowledge was your competitive edge.

… but something has shifted

Fast forward to today. While technical skills still matter, the game is fundamentally changing. In just a few years from now - honestly, it's already happening - if you don't understand Design, you're not just at a disadvantage - you might actually be cooked. The technical bar for products is vanishing faster than anyone predicted. AI is democratizing functionality at a staggering pace. Soon, every product will be smart. Every interface will be smooth. Every experience will be personalized.

I keep seeing companies get design all wrong. Can't tell you how many meetings I've sat through where design gets pushed to the last minute - just another box to check before shipping. As if it's some magic sparkle dust you sprinkle on at the end.

Make it POP!

they say, missing the entire point. After years of building products, I have learned something fundamental:

Design isn't about making products work better - it's about making them matter. More, more, more. Let that sink in.

When your product merely “works,” you’re offering utility, and utility is becoming cheaper by the second. The real differentiation - the thing that makes users stick around, that builds genuine loyalty - comes from design that deeply resonates. Not surface-level polish, but design that speaks to users in their own language, that feels built specifically for them and their community.

This isn't just theory - I'm watching it play out in real time. Products that win aren't winning on features anymore.

They’re winning on understanding.

AI isn’t just making bad products decent. It’s giving everyone the capability to build products that are better than most of what we use today. The baseline is rising above what we currently consider “good.” Features that were once differentiators will become standard. Over time I predict that technical excellence - even exceptional technical excellence - will become table stakes.

Think about your own relationship with products: when was the last time you felt genuine loyalty to a utility product? If a cheaper, slightly better AI tool came along tomorrow, would you even hesitate to switch? That’s because at this new, elevated baseline, being “good” isn’t good enough anymore.

Now think about the products you actually love… they didn’t win you with features. They won you by making you feel something. And as AI pushes the technical bar higher than ever before, this emotional resonance becomes the only game worth playing.