Skills to be an
AI Product Manager.
Ravi Teja Palanki.
Senior Technical PM at Honeywell · Building enterprise AI.
Enterprise AI builder.
12+ years at Fortune 100 scale. Production Gen AI — RAG, LLMs, context engineering.
Perplexity AI Business Fellow.
Class of 2025. A practitioner voice in AI product leadership.
TAPMI Advisory Board.
Advisor on the MBA in AI programme. Founding Co-ordinator of TAPMI LADC.
And a millennial parent —
which changes everything I think about AI.
Three Promises.
What must you know today?
The knowledge most MBAs miss — the kind that puts you in the top 1% world-class.
What 3 shifts are coming?
Three structural shifts ahead. Plus the top 0.1% AI PM skills they will reward.
What one ritual to start?
One simple practice. Begin during your MBA. Unstoppable within a decade.
“I’m not world-class.” That’s a verdict.
“I’m not world-class yet.” That’s a path.
yet.
“‘Not yet’ gives a learner a path into the future, and creates greater persistence.”
Carol Dweck · MindsetThe 3-Box Framework.
Keep what travels · Subtract what drags · Build what compounds. — Ravi Teja Palanki
From Ambition to Earned Life, in the agentic era.
Who do I aspire to become?
Values, purpose — the long story of my life.
What do I want to achieve?
Time-bound goals. Roles. Metrics.
What will I do today?
Behaviors, ships, loops.
“Would the person I aspire to become, do it this way?”
Aspiration. Ambition. Action.
Three layers, one earned life.
Who you want to become.
Long-horizon. Identity-level. About inner fulfillment — the kind of person you respect.
“I want to help build ethical AI that improves the lives of millions.”
What you want to achieve.
Time-bound. Goal-level. About milestones, roles, metrics, rewards.
“I want to become Head of AI Product at a top startup in 8 years.”
What you will do today.
Immediate. Behavior-level. Concrete steps and daily practice.
“This week I will ship an AI agent prototype and test it with 5 users.”
5 skills that compound.
Start developing these now — they survive every model upgrade.
Taste at Speed
Be the editor, not the writer.
Evals as PRD
Specs become datasets.
Harness Mastery
Architect the system.
Inference Economics
Cost-per-output is P&L.
Outcome Translation
Speak business, not metrics.
Models commoditise. The 5 above are what compound.
3 Shifts.
Each one resets the rules. None are reversing.
AI is no longer optional.
It is the operating layer of every business — not an add-on, not a niche.
Smaller teams. Bigger output.
Less is the new normal. Resources don’t scale — ambition does.
You orchestrate Humans + AI.
The new top role: setting direction, evaluating outcomes, leading mixed teams.
Lines are blurring.
The PM role now spans design and engineering.
PMs craft prototypes that survive a product design review.
Designers iterate directly in code — not mocks — before handover.
Engineers steer agent work and evaluate traces, not just write code.
A PM who ships customer-ready AI prototypes — on the customer’s floor, in days.
3 Archetypes of an AI PM.
Three places to land in the agentic era.
The Maker.
Ships the foundation — models, APIs, primitives.
Frontier AI OpenAI · Anthropic · Google | Infra NVIDIA · xAI
The Shipper.
Ships AI-native products with PMF and unit economics.
Fortune 500 Microsoft | AI-Native Cursor · Perplexity
The Translator.
Forward Deployed PM
Engineer × Product × Customer-facing — in one role. Embeds with customers, ships prototypes in days, loops insight back to product.
Lovable · Palantir · OpenAI (Codex) · Anthropic · Sierra
Every company chasing enterprise adoption is betting here — not on account management.
What is expected. And why.
What is expected. And why.
One page. Every day.
The simplest practice. Started now. Unstoppable within a decade.
Most Important Task.
The one task you commit to ship today. This makes you an unstoppable Executioner.
One Learning.
What did you learn today — in one sentence. This makes you a better Critical Thinker through Reflection.
Become the person first.
The title comes later.
“You can take everything from me — but you cannot take my ability to start over.”
— Francis Ngannou
Three books worth your time.
How Will You Measure Your Life?
Clayton Christensen
“There are no quick fixes for the fundamental problems of life. But I can offer you theories that help you make good choices.”
Hidden Genius
Polina Marinova Pompliano
“A masterclass in how the world’s most successful people think.”— James Clear
Same As Ever
Morgan Housel
“Want to understand the changing world? Start with what stays the same.”