The PM's survival guide to AI in 2026
Abstract
The AI landscape is shifting quickly enough that conventional product roadmaps are becoming obsolete before they are delivered. This paper offers a practical survival guide for product managers working on AI, based on how teams at Anthropic, Datadog and Decagon are adapting to models that change every few months. It sets out why long-term roadmaps no longer survive contact with the field, how shorter exploratory work replaces quarterly planning, and which skills matter when the underlying capability moves faster than the plan. The paper proposes replacing roadmaps with experiment portfolios, a framework for balancing exploration against delivery so that a team can keep shipping while the ground moves. It addresses how to evaluate AI opportunities without being paralysed by the pace of change, and describes the skill stack an AI product manager now needs and how to build it. Readers take away a way of working that treats volatility as the operating condition rather than an interruption.
- Published in
- Proceedings of the Raptors Conference, Vol. 1 (2026)
- Conference
- Raptors Conference 2026, 21 October 2026, online
- Accepted
- 2026-09-17
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.68495/rc.2026.C008
- Presentation
- Slides (PDF)
- Licence
- © 2026Artem Miloserdov. Published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
- Publisher
- Hackathon Raptors, Community Interest Company 15557917, London, United Kingdom
- Permanent address
- https://proceedings.raptors.dev/miloserdov-pms-survival-guide-ai
Open access. Every entry in the Proceedings is free to read, with no charge to authors and no charge to readers. Slides are served from this site, so they stay available at the paper's permanent address.
Cite this paper
Artem Miloserdov (2026). The PM's survival guide to AI in 2026. Proceedings of the Raptors Conference, Vol. 1 (2026). Hackathon Raptors, London. https://doi.org/10.68495/rc.2026.C008
@inproceedings{raptors2026-c008,
title = {{The PM's survival guide to AI in 2026}},
author = {Miloserdov, Artem},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the Raptors Conference},
volume = {1},
year = {2026},
publisher = {Hackathon Raptors},
address = {London, United Kingdom},
doi = {10.68495/rc.2026.C008},
url = {https://doi.org/10.68495/rc.2026.C008},
abstract = {The AI landscape is shifting quickly enough that conventional product roadmaps are becoming obsolete before they are delivered. This paper offers a practical survival guide for product managers working on AI, based on how teams at Anthropic, Datadog and Decagon are adapting to models that change every few months. It sets out why long-term roadmaps no longer survive contact with the field, how shorter exploratory work replaces quarterly planning, and which skills matter when the underlying capability moves faster than the plan. The paper proposes replacing roadmaps with experiment portfolios, a framework for balancing exploration against delivery so that a team can keep shipping while the ground moves. It addresses how to evaluate AI opportunities without being paralysed by the pace of change, and describes the skill stack an AI product manager now needs and how to build it. Readers take away a way of working that treats volatility as the operating condition rather than an interruption.}
}
TY - CONF TI - The PM's survival guide to AI in 2026 AU - Miloserdov, Artem T2 - Proceedings of the Raptors Conference VL - 1 PY - 2026 DA - 2026/09/17 PB - Hackathon Raptors CY - London, United Kingdom DO - 10.68495/rc.2026.C008 UR - https://doi.org/10.68495/rc.2026.C008 AB - The AI landscape is shifting quickly enough that conventional product roadmaps are becoming obsolete before they are delivered. This paper offers a practical survival guide for product managers working on AI, based on how teams at Anthropic, Datadog and Decagon are adapting to models that change every few months. It sets out why long-term roadmaps no longer survive contact with the field, how shorter exploratory work replaces quarterly planning, and which skills matter when the underlying capability moves faster than the plan. The paper proposes replacing roadmaps with experiment portfolios, a framework for balancing exploration against delivery so that a team can keep shipping while the ground moves. It addresses how to evaluate AI opportunities without being paralysed by the pace of change, and describes the skill stack an AI product manager now needs and how to build it. Readers take away a way of working that treats volatility as the operating condition rather than an interruption. LA - en ER -