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New to product: Build foundations · Core

Use AI tools to learn product management, carefully

AI assistants can explain ideas, critique your writing and act as a practice partner. They can also be confidently wrong. Use them to speed up learning, never to replace your own thinking or your own evidence.

About 2-4 hoursEvergreenLast reviewed 9 November 2026

Who this applies to

Skills it builds
Technical and AI fluency
PM types
All
Product types
All
Starting points
Exploring product management
Ways of working
All
Experience
Beginner (under 1 year)
Size of organisation
All

Steps

  1. Choose one assistant you can use freely. Read the guidance on writing clear prompts in the sources, which works for any tool, and note three tips.
  2. Ask it to explain a concept you are learning, such as a funnel, in plain English with an example. Check the explanation against one of the sources in this plan.
  3. Ask for a critique. Paste a short piece you wrote, such as a problem statement, and ask what is unclear or missing. Decide yourself which comments to accept.
  4. Use it as a practice partner. Ask it to play an interviewer and ask follow-up questions about a decision you describe. Answer out loud.
  5. Test its limits. Ask for a statistic or a quote, then try to find the original. Note what it got wrong.
  6. Never paste in private or confidential information, such as your employer's documents, customer data or other people's personal details. Use made-up or public examples.
  7. Write three rules for how you will use AI while learning, for example 'I check facts against a source' and 'I write the first draft myself'.

Tool examples

Claude
Ask it to explain a concept and to list what it is unsure about. Then check one claim in a source.
ChatGPT
Ask it to act as an interviewer for a product role and to give you one thing to improve after each answer.
Gemini
Ask it to critique a short problem statement and to point out missing evidence.

Definition of done

  • Three rules for using AI written down
  • One concept checked against a source
  • One critique of your own writing reviewed

Common pitfalls

  • Treating confident answers as correct
  • Letting the tool write your practice work, so you learn nothing
  • Pasting in confidential or personal information

Do these first

Sources