How Can AI Tools Benefit Product Owners?

As a product owner, balancing the needs of the team, the stakeholders, and the marketplace are big components of what you do. As enterprises continue to adopt AI tools and platforms, you have an opportunity to discover how responsible, informed use of these tools can improve your experience at work and your ability to deliver results. 

AI-integrated tools are rapidly evolving, so being open to experimentation and adapting how you use them will be a critical part of your journey with new technology. Check out the e-learning course, AI & Agility: A Comprehensive Introduction, to find out how you can merge human ingenuity with AI.

Ready to discover more specific ways to use AI? Find out how to welcome these technologies to the agile team so that you can spend your time on the most valuable product management work in AI for Product Owners. You'll earn a microcredential to prove your skills.

Let's explore how AI tools can enhance your work as a product owner in four key areas: 

• Market research and trend analysis 
• Personalization 
• Data-driven decision-making 
• Workflow management

Keep in mind that any tool or process is just that: a tool or process. They are there to enable the work of the scrum team and should be modified or removed based on their benefit. We'll look at a few current options available today, but keep in mind that these tools are changing rapidly. Experiment with what's out there and assess their value as you go.

#1) Market research and trend analysis

A part of your job as a product owner is understanding market trends, but that’s an area that has the potential to get neglected when you’re busy working on delivery. However, AI-powered tools can quickly and easily provide you with that critical information. Market research that used to take weeks or months to obtain can happen in mere minutes.

AI can analyze vast amounts of data from various sources to identify market trends, customer preferences, and competitor activities. The tools can also help you quickly see trends with customer reviews and feedback, and social media comments to understand user opinions about your product and its competitors.

Here are three AI-powered tools that can speed up your market research:

HubSpot

• HubSpot offers AI-powered tools that can assist in analyzing customer behavior and customer journey mapping.

Tableau

• Tableau is a data visualization tool that presents market analysis findings. The visually compelling software makes sharing market research with stakeholders more professional-looking and easier to understand.

Microsoft Azure Machine Learning

• This tool analyzes market data to gain insights into customer behavior.

When choosing an AI tool for market analysis, consider what type of market information you need for your product and if any existing software tools will meet your needs by simply adding an AI component.

#2) Personalization

As a product owner, you want the products or features your team is building to resonate with customers. Today’s global marketplace is over-saturated with product options, so personalizing your product’s offering is critical to its success.

Here are three AI-powered tools that help you streamline personalization:

Adobe Target

• Adobe Target is an AI-driven personalization tool for web and mobile experiences. It uses machine learning to target specific user segments with relevant content.

Google Cloud AI Recommendations

• This AI tool offers personalized content recommendations based on user behavior and preferences. It integrates with Google Cloud's machine learning capabilities.

Evergage

• Evergage offers real-time personalization across websites, emails, and mobile apps. It uses machine learning to analyze user behavior and deliver personalized experiences.

Personalizing your product to meet customers’ needs will help you determine which features should resonate with your users. Prioritizing work gets easier because stakeholders can review data that shows which enhancements or new products are likely to sell.

#3) Data-driven decision-making

Having data at your fingertips helps you make decisions along with your stakeholders, team, and other departments. Data provides objective standards for discussing the pros and cons of any decision instead of basing those choices on subjective feelings or guesses. 

Data-driven decision-making has been a common agile topic over the past few years, but getting that data without spending hours of extra work is now easier than ever. 

Here are three AI-powered tools to try that help with data-driven decision-making:

Power BI

• Power BI is a business analytics tool that allows product owners to visualize and share insights from their data. It integrates with various data sources and supports interactive reporting and dashboard creation.

Google Analytics

• Google Analytics is a widely used web analytics service that provides insights into website traffic and user behavior. It offers features like goal tracking, conversion analysis, and audience segmentation. It uses machine learning to power features like Smart Goals and Smart Lists, which help users identify valuable website interactions and target high-value users. It also provides automated insights that highlight significant trends and anomalies in the data.

IBM Cognos Analytics

• This business intelligence solution allows product owners to create interactive reports and gain insights into business performance. It also incorporates AI-driven analytics to uncover insights and patterns in the data.

The specific AI features and capabilities may vary, but the goal is to empower product owners to make more informed and data-driven decisions.

#4) Workflow automation

If you’ve worked on a scrum team before, you’re probably already familiar with agile workflow tools that manage your product backlog and sprints. However, these tools have come a long way recently and are now utilizing AI to automate mundane tasks. 

Here are three worth checking out:

Monday.com

• Monday.com integrates with AI tools for workload optimization, predictive analytics, and automating repetitive tasks.

Asana

• Asana utilizes AI for task prioritization, automated scheduling, and predictive analysis. It can suggest due dates and task dependencies based on historical data and user behavior.

Jira (by Atlassian)

• Jira integrates with various AI-driven plugins and add-ons. These can provide features such as predictive analytics, intelligent reporting, and automated task assignments based on historical data and patterns.

There are many options for product owners to utilize AI-powered tools in the new world of work. AI presents the possibility of taking away the busy work that can delay you from focusing on the truly innovative aspects of your job, allowing you to be more strategic, customer-centric, and data-driven in your approach to product ownership.

Discover more at the intersection of agility and AI

Want to learn more about enhancing agile practices with AI? Check out our free introductory course AI & Agility or dive into AI tactics for product management in AI for Product Owners.

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