AI Product Manager is more than a technical translator: This is how I understand it with my advertising academic background

This article reveals the unique career advantages of a humanities background in the AI era through cross - disciplinary thinking from advertising planning to AI product management. The author, based on personal experiences, analyzes the core commonalities between advertising and AI product management, including empathy, packaging ability, proposal - making ability, and logical thinking. It shows how to transform creative talents into the warmth and value of AI products.

A few days ago, while organizing materials, I came across an unfinished document from 2018. Seeing the words "Product Manager Training Plan" on it, I thought carefully and vaguely remembered that it seemed to be an unfinished courseware for undergraduates.

Let's go back to 2018. I went back to Hangzhou and had a meal with my teacher. During the meal, we talked about the employment directions of advertising students. I gave a rather "niche" suggestion at that time: "Actually, they are particularly suitable to be product managers, especially AI product managers."

The teacher was probably taken aback. At that time, not to mention AI product managers, even regular internet product managers were, in the perception of teachers in the humanities college, mostly considered the "exclusive job" of computer science students. But in fact, many advertising graduates had already started to get involved and were doing very well!

To explain clearly, I made an analogy between AI product managers, whom I knew relatively well, and advertising planners. How do AI product managers discover needs, create peak experiences, and transform cold data and technology into user experiences with a human touch? This has something in common with consumer insights, copywriting, and creative proposals in advertising.

The teacher thought it was a good new career path and immediately invited me to jointly create a set of courseware to help advertising students get a head - start before entering the workplace. Unfortunately, I was in the upward phase of my career at that time, overwhelmed by various demands and projects every day, and the courseware plan was eventually shelved.

Looking back now, I feel quite regretful. With the booming development of large - scale models and AI applications in the past two years, if that courseware had been made back then, it would definitely have shown foresight. At least, it would have opened a door for the younger students to learn about this career path in advance.

However, I think today, people's understanding of this matter no longer requires courseware. Bringing this up today, I mainly want to say that no matter when and where, don't be restricted by your major or fixed perceptions. The world has so much room for imagination. Be bold in trying and breaking through!

Back to the topic, let me talk about my understanding of majors and careers. In my view, an excellent AI product manager is not just a "technical translator." It is a profession that requires a combination of sensibility and rationality. And this is precisely the core competitive advantage of people with an advertising background. Just like in the recently released movie "Revealing Day," the two most valuable abilities of humans are logical thinking and empathy, and both are indispensable.

Putting aside the most difficult underlying algorithms and focusing on the AI application layer, the core qualities of a good AI product manager can be summarized into four points:

Product perception, user empathy, communication ability, and structured logical output ability.

User Empathy

What is the core of advertising? It is insight.

We study consumer behavior and social psychology, and stay up late to write proposals at the company. Essentially, we are doing one thing: forcing ourselves to become the target users. We need to sense those subtle emotions and discover the hidden desires that users themselves can't even clearly express.

The same goes for AI product development. Today's AI technology is very powerful, but it is often cold and homogeneous. If you can connect to a large - scale model, so can others. What often differentiates products is who can better empathize with users. That is, when the "weapons" are similar, it tests the core insight into a matter.

An AI PM with an advertising background can keenly sense: "How is the user feeling in this scenario? Is the user happy, anxious, or angry? What can our interaction and solutions do for the user? Is the problem - solving process comfortable? Should the interaction be more anthropomorphic, more comforting, and more like a human...?" This in - born empathy is something that many students with an advertising background have.

Product Perception and Packaging Ability

Advertisers are very good at "packaging." Here, "packaging" doesn't mean being deceptive, but rather translating value. They need to sense the underlying capabilities of the product and reshape the product's presentation from the user's perspective. Advertisers naturally know how to promote products and tell stories. When an AI product manager has this perception ability, the products they create will not be dry tools but partners with warmth and emotional value. I remember when we were developing a children's robot product for 3 - 8 - year - olds, the whole team was surrounded by innocence, cuteness, and a sense of well - being during the product development process. After this warmth was packaged and presented in the product's core through technology, it was still effectively conveyed to the users.

Communication and "Proposal - Making" Ability

Product managers know that we spend half of our time drawing prototypes, writing PRDs, and now having conversations with AI. The other half of the time, we are "arguing" - arguing with the business side, with R & D, and sometimes presenting solutions to customers.

What's the difference between this and advertising planning? Back then, when we wanted to present a sincere proposal, we had to impress the picky clients and convince our bosses, and get other departments to cooperate in the implementation.

The communication ability trained in advertising is not just being talkative. It is the empathy in communication when switching identities. When facing algorithm engineers, you can discuss technical feasibility with logic and boundaries. When facing bosses or clients, you can describe the vision with business value and user experience. This "proposal - making ability" to seamlessly switch in different contexts is the strongest driving force for the implementation of AI projects.

Structured Logical Analysis Ability

Many people have misunderstandings about advertisers, thinking that they just come up with catchy slogans out of thin air. In fact, advertisers who have really managed large - scale projects know that a good advertising plan is based on rigorous logical deduction: from market research, competitor analysis, and audience profiling to media combination, budget allocation, implementation, and effect evaluation, every step is closely linked.

This thinking mode of "sensibility for divergence and rationality for convergence" is tailor - made for AI product managers.

When conceiving application scenarios for AI products, you need strong sensibility to expand your imagination. But when designing the system architecture, sorting out data flow, and formulating model evaluation indicators, you must use rigorous structured logic to turn wild ideas into specific executable plans.

It's not easy. You need to understand the softness of human nature and the hardness of logic. You need to look up at the starry sky of AI technology and also be down - to - earth in every interaction detail. But this is also what makes this profession so fascinating.

Dancing with Shackles

There is an old and very accurate saying in the advertising circle: "Advertisers are dancers with shackles." When we do advertising planning, we never have boundless imagination. Our "shackles" are the client's limited budget, strict requirements, and established brand perception, but we still have to come up with a wonderful idea. This saying is very appropriate for today's AI product managers.

Large - scale models can have hallucinations, have limitations on token length, high computing costs, and strict compliance requirements... These are the "shackles" on the feet of AI product managers. But we still firmly believe that we should present an elegant dance for users within the technical boundaries. This is the tenacity in the bones of advertisers.

Finally, if you also have a background in advertising, media, or related fields, and are confused about your career direction, or are curious about AI but afraid to approach it, I want to tell you based on my personal experiences in the past few years:

Don't be intimidated by the letters "AI." Engineers will overcome the technical barriers, but how to dance the most beautiful dance with shackles, and how to make technology truly serve and touch people, are the super - abilities that we have already mastered during our school days and countless late - night proposal - writing sessions!

Let's cheer up together!

This article is from the WeChat official account "Everyone Is a Product Manager" (ID: woshipm). The author is Mi Chu Yu Ying. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.