AI in Product Marketing: A Tool for Growth, Not a Replacement

AI copilots are everywhere, or at least, that’s what the hype would have you believe. AI copilots are intelligent assistants that enhance workflows by automating tasks, generating content, analyzing data, and providing real-time suggestions. These are tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Jasper… Whether it’s drafting emails or summarizing documents, these platforms are marketed as game-changers. For product marketers juggling a million things at once, it sounds like a dream come true. But are we overselling the story? Sure, AI copilots are useful. They speed up small tasks and handle some of the hard work. However, if you dig a little deeper, their real value often falls short of the hype. The bigger opportunity isn’t just automating what you already do. It’s rethinking how you work altogether.

Quick Wins, Small Gains

Let’s start with a few examples of AI applications..

ChatGPT generating product descriptions, brainstorming messaging ideas, and drafting marketing content in seconds.
Microsoft Copilot automating Excel data analysis, generating reports, and summarizing complex documents with ease.
Jasper crafting tailored marketing copy, blog posts, and ad variations based on minimal input.
Copy.ai producing compelling headlines, product descriptions, and ad creatives optimized for engagement.
Perplexity delivering instant research summaries, synthesizing credible sources, and providing deeper insights for market analysis.
Adobe Creative Suite using AI-powered tools like Generative Fill in Photoshop to automate complex edits, enhance images, and speed up creative workflows.
Canva leveraging AI with Magic Design to generate on-brand templates, suggest design improvements, and automate resizing across formats.
Figma accelerating UI/UX workflows with AI-driven auto-layouts, prototype refinements, and smart design suggestions to streamline collaboration.

Those are awesome tools, and are part of my day-to-day AI tools. They cut down on tedious tasks and give me more time to focus on the bigger picture and strategy. With that said, these are incremental improvements. They help you move a little faster, but they’re not overhauling your strategy or unlocking massive growth.

The Problem with the Overpromise

The real challenge with AI copilots is that they can make you feel like you’re making more progress than you actually are.

They’re great for specific tasks: drafting, calculating, summarizing. But they’re not making strategic decisions or solving end-to-end challenges.
Progress vs. Growth: Saving time on tasks is nice, but it’s not the same as driving meaningful growth.
Over-Reliance: The risk of leaning too heavily on AI is losing sight of the process. When you depend on AI to spit out answers, you risk missing the why behind the work.
Humans Aren’t Replaceable: AI isn’t here to take your job (no matter what the dystopian headlines say). It’s here to assist.

Rethinking How You Use AI

How do you turn AI copilots from a nice-to-have into a transformative breakthrough? The answer lies in making AI central to your workflows. Here’s how to approach it:

Think Holistically: Don’t just use AI for one-off tasks. Look at the bigger picture. How can it improve your entire process, from ideation to execution.
Break Down Silos: AI thrives when it has access to all your data. If your tools are working in isolation, they’ll only ever deliver half-baked results.
Collaborate, Don’t Replace: The magic happens when humans and AI work together. Let the AI handle the repetitive stuff, and lean on your expertise to elevate the final output.

Where AI Really Excels in Product Marketing

When used intentionally, AI creates new opportunities in product marketing. It enhances how you can gather insights, refine messaging, and shape go-to-market strategies. AI can process vast amounts of data to uncover patterns, and eventually help you better understand your audience and position products more effectively. By analyzing user behavior, industry trends, and competitive landscapes at scale, AI enables deeper insights that would take human teams far longer to identify.

Beyond insights, AI accelerates iteration and decision-making. What I love is that you quickly test ideas, analyze patterns, and refine positioning. Whether it is identifying which messaging resonates most with specific customer segments or optimizing value propositions in real time, AI provides the intelligence to make more informed strategic choices. That way, you can keep up with high-demanding tasks.

AI-powered tools also make content development and personalization more efficient. By automating aspects of messaging and structuring content based on audience insights, AI ensures that communication remains relevant without requiring excessive manual effort. Instead of replacing human creativity, AI enhances it by providing a strong foundation that marketers can build upon. It eliminates guesswork, allowing teams to focus on crafting narratives that connect with their audience in a meaningful way. Any tool that I’ve used still requires a descent amount of work to fine-tune and improve the output.

When used well, AI can strengthen product marketing by enabling smarter, faster, and more adaptive execution. It is not about automating creativity but about unlocking the capacity to think bigger, move faster, and refine strategies with precision. The true value of AI in product marketing is not in doing the work for us, but in amplifying our ability to make better decisions and create stronger connections with the audiences we serve.

The Human Element Matters

The real power in product marketing still comes from the human element. AI can generate insights, automate tasks, and accelerate execution, but it lacks the intuition, creativity, and strategic thinking that define great marketing.

What makes a product resonate with an audience is not just well-optimized messaging or hyper-personalized outreach. It is the ability to understand what truly motivates people, anticipate their needs, and craft narratives that inspire action. AI can assist in identifying trends, but it cannot replace the human ability to interpret context, challenge assumptions, and make bold decisions. Though funny enough, that’s the main purpose of LLMs, interpreting contexts and provide human-like responses.

Product marketing is as much an art as it is a science. While AI can streamline workflows and provide data-driven recommendations, it is human creativity that turns insights into compelling stories. It is the marketer who shapes a brand’s voice, refines positioning, and ensures that messaging aligns with both business objectives and customer expectations.

Collaboration between AI and human expertise is where the real transformation happens. AI can provide a foundation, but it is up to marketers to elevate the output, make strategic choices, and infuse campaigns with meaning. While it might be conflicting with Zuckerberg’s view on engineering, the future of product marketing will not be defined by AI alone. It will be led by marketers who know how to harness AI’s potential while preserving the distinctly human qualities that drive real connection and long-term impact.

Driving Growth with AI

When used thoughtfully, AI offers more than just incremental improvements. It becomes a force for reimagining how product marketing is done. It enables deeper customer understanding, faster adaptation, and more personalized engagement at scale. But the true value of AI lies in its ability to empower marketers to focus on what matters most. Crafting strategies that inspire, connect, and drive meaningful growth. By embracing AI as a strategic partner, marketers have the opportunity to not only enhance their workflows but also lead the charge in shaping the future of product marketing. The question is not just how we use AI, but how we leverage it to unlock our full potential.