Ant Murphy: How product management is changing in 2026 — backed by data

Ant Murphy published this video in January 2026 as a data-grounded overview of where the PM role stands at the start of the year. Murphy is an independent product consultant and educator who publishes research on product management trends, and this video draws from the same dataset behind his newsletter analysis of the year’s opening conditions.

Who it is for

This video is most relevant for product managers who want a data-backed perspective on how the market and the day-to-day role are shifting, rather than editorial takes on what PMs “should” do next. It is also useful for product leaders trying to communicate to their organizations why certain skills and behaviors matter more than they did two or three years ago. No particular specialization is required — the content addresses the PM role broadly.

Key takeaways

1. The job market is recovering, with a structural shift in what roles are being filled. Murphy cites approximately 42,000 open PM roles on LinkedIn at the start of 2026, roughly double the figure from the prior year. AI PM roles account for 8–10% of those openings, concentrated in the US. The recovery is real, but the composition of what’s being hired has shifted — generic generalist roles are less prominent than they were in the 2020–2022 expansion.

2. AI is saving time without guaranteeing strategic outcomes. The data Murphy references shows 94% of product professionals using AI frequently, with daily time savings of roughly 1–2 hours. Against that, he sets a contrasting figure: 95% of enterprise generative AI pilots fail to produce measurable return on investment. The implication is that adoption speed and workflow efficiency are not the same as product success, and that faster execution against the wrong direction produces the same result as slow execution against the wrong direction.

3. The role of product strategy is increasing precisely because execution has become easier. Murphy’s central argument is summarized in a phrase he returns to: “Speed without direction is just chaos in disguise.” When AI tools allow engineering teams to ship in hours what previously took days, the scarcest resource in a product organization shifts from execution capacity to strategic clarity. The video argues this is why the top skills for 2026 — strategy, business acumen, and systems thinking — are not new but have become more critical.

4. The definition of the PM role is blurring at some organizations. Murphy covers the LinkedIn “Product Builder” experiment as an example of how some companies are collapsing product, design, and engineering into roles that span all three. He frames this as an experiment rather than a trend, noting that most organizations have not moved this way and that the data on outcomes for this structure is limited.

5. Profitability has displaced growth as the organizational metric that drives PM decisions. Companies that expanded aggressively during low-rate years are now optimizing for margins. Murphy connects this to a reduction in product’s strategic influence at some organizations, where top-down direction has increased relative to bottom-up discovery. This context matters for how PMs position their work internally and what kind of arguments get traction with leadership.

Worth watching if

You are trying to calibrate your development priorities for the year ahead with reference to actual market data rather than industry opinion, or if you lead a team and want a structured framing for a conversation about where to invest in skills and working methods.