Will AI make us all product builders?
#75: How our role might look like in the future
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Will we all become Product Builders?
The digital product design and development industry is changing before our eyes, largely thanks to AI. There are many shifts underway, and one of the most frequently discussed is what product teams will look like in the near and long-term future.
We all know what the usual team setup looks like. There is a PM, one or two designers, and anywhere from a few to a dozen developers. Each role focuses on its own domain while collaborating with others.
However, there are growing signs that this model is beginning to change, slowly or very quickly, depending on the organization. Referring to two great conversations by Lenny Rachitsky, the recent episode The design process is dead. Here’s what’s replacing it with Jenny Wen, Head of Design at Claude, and an earlier one with Dylan Field, CEO of Figma, titled Why AI makes design, craft, and quality the new moat for startups we can draw the conclusion that the traditional split between designer, engineer, and PM is becoming less accurate in describing reality.
If this division truly begins to disappear in the coming years, what will replace it? It seems that the answer may be the era of product builders.
In this second article in the career development series, we will take a closer look at the increasingly visible role of the product builder. It also serves as a natural continuation of the previous article about the IC path.
Who is a product builder?
A product builder is someone who can independently take a product from idea to launch, combining design, product, and technical thinking. Most often, they are designers or product managers with deep expertise in their core domain who, with the help of AI, extend their capabilities across other stages of the process. Increasingly, developers are following a similar path, expanding their role to include product and design thinking.
Are we supposed to become experts in everything now?
Definitely not. However, our role is clearly evolving to adapt to a new reality. So what does the designer of the future actually look like? Jenny Wen proposes three new archetypes she would be most excited to hire.
Block-shaped generalist
The Deep-T Specialist
The Cracked New Grad
Block-shaped generalist
This is someone who is strong across multiple areas at once, so their skill profile looks more like a block than a T. It refers to a person with substantial knowledge across several disciplines, such as design, coding, and product thinking, although not necessarily at the exact same level in each. I would say this archetype is the closest to a product builder.
The Deep-T Specialist
This is an evolution of the classic T-shaped profile. People in this archetype have even deeper expertise in their core area, often described as being in the top 10% of a specific field, such as systems thinking, visual design, research, or animation. It can also apply to a designer who has developed very deep knowledge in product management or development.
This archetype is particularly important right now because when anyone can build almost anything with AI, deep expertise becomes even more critical. It is what allows teams to validate, refine, and meaningfully develop what AI helps generate.
The Cracked New Grad
This is someone at an earlier stage of their career who is driven by curiosity, ambition, and resilience in the face of change. They are not yet shaped by established ways of working, which allows them to adapt quickly to a rapidly evolving environment. This makes them an ideal candidate in fast-changing times. Jenny considers this one of the most underrated archetypes.
Each of these archetypes responds to a different challenge we are currently facing. The block-shaped generalist addresses the blurring of roles. The Deep T responds to the need for real depth of expertise. The Cracked New Grad reflects the need for adaptability.
What they all share is curiosity, a willingness to step beyond defined roles, and openness to change.
In the context of the product builder, the block-shaped archetype describes it best. However, it could be strengthened by elements of the Deep T, such as strong domain expertise, as well as the mindset of the Cracked New Grad, without which it is difficult to succeed in today’s environment.
Is the market really moving in this direction?
In my opinion, absolutely yes. We may not yet know exactly what form this will ultimately take or how it will look in the context of the archetypes mentioned above, but this shift is already happening.
Let’s start with a statement from Cynthia Savard Saucier, VP of UX at Shopify:
“My design team has a 100% adoption of Cursor. All have demonstrated their ability to create simple coded prototypes, and over 75 % have shared complex prototypes. It’s *wild* how fast this has been achieved.”
Next, we have Ryo Lu, Lead Designer at Cursor, who, as early as July 2025, mentioned that he designs Cursor directly in Cursor:
“Cursor changed everything for designers. I went from sketching UI to shipping a full agent OS. The gap between ideas and reality is closer than ever to zero.”
Now let’s look at research conducted by Figma. Based on these findings, Dylan Field, Figma’s CEO, said that 72% of respondents are expanding their responsibilities thanks to AI tools, and 56% of non-designers are already taking on design-related tasks:
“We’re all product builders, and some of us are specialized in our particular area,”
Dylan Field on Lenny’s podcast
Returning to Figma’s research, the report states that 65% of product managers engage in at least one design task, and 57% of developers report moderate or significant involvement in prototyping. The report also describes product managers as increasingly involved in creating mockups or prototypes to help communicate their vision at the beginning of a project.
In the article accompanying the report, titled Are roles and responsibilities a thing of the past? we can also read:
“Ownership of design work is broadening: Non-designer participation in design-centric tasks like creating mockups and brand explorations has increased 10% in the past year. In practice, this looks like marketers creating quick visual assets for social media or PMs sketching early ideas rather than waiting for a working prototype from a designer. In fact, 70% of PMs said they’re creating low-fidelity mockups or wireframing, and 59% said they’re taking on interactive prototyping.
We can find more interesting insights in the report PM Field Guide for the AI Era, which describes prototyping as a central practice of the modern product manager. Here are two additional quotes:
"We're starting to see a shift from 'Let's keep talking about this' to 'Let me prototype that for you.'"
David Kossnick (Head of AI Products, Figma)
“There's the old adage 'a picture saves a thousand words.' Equally dependable is that 'a prototype saves a thousand meetings.' We're making decisions faster because we're not getting mired in abstractions.”
Charlie Sutton (Chief Design Officer, Atlassian)
This is only a small sample of the information available online. There is a growing number of signals pointing to changes in product teams and job postings, sometimes explicitly for product builders.
It is becoming less surprising to see a product manager creating working prototypes or a designer delivering production-ready code or components for Storybook. LinkedIn has even launched the Associate Product Builder (APB) program, supporting the development of product builders with the opportunity to be hired within the organization.
All of this suggests that environments and processes in which we can call ourselves product builders are not a distant future.
Building and scaling products
Looking at the information above, can we say that in the future, the division into specializations will disappear entirely and teams will consist only of product builders? In my opinion, no. This view is also supported by one of the archetypes proposed by Jenny, the Deep T. I would argue, however, that the role of product builders in the process will vary depending on the stage the product is in. For simplicity, I will divide it into two phases: 0→1 and 1→100.
0→1
At this stage, product builders can operate at the full extent of their capabilities because speed of delivery, testing, and iteration matter most. Dylan Field has said directly that the most valuable skill is shortening the distance between an idea and a working prototype. That is exactly what product builders can do. Without communication barriers or hours of meetings, they can deliver a ready solution in the form of a prototype or implemented code within hours. At this stage, rapid launch and user feedback matter more than quality, scalability, or security. As a result, a product builder can confidently lead a project end-to-end, even without deep knowledge of areas such as architecture, since the overall risk is relatively low.
1→100
Here, things become more complex. The product builder is still present, but the role evolves and expands to include collaboration with specialists such as database engineers, security experts, and people responsible for designing systems. A product builder remains highly valuable because they can independently define problems, explore solutions, build prototypes and new features, and test them with users. What changes significantly is that pushing things directly to production may, for many reasons, no longer be possible. In such cases, the product builder can hand off ready code to developers, who ensure code quality and proper implementation. This is a process Jenny also mentions in her podcast.
In addition, some organizations, such as Spotify and Airbnb, are developing small teams focused on rapidly testing new features. This is an ideal environment for a product builder, as in many cases, a single person can move through the entire process.
At the 1→100 stage, additional factors come into play, including technical debt, standards, consistency, and overall product complexity. Because of this, one person cannot realistically do everything. Moreover, managing debt, maintaining standards, and ensuring consistency remain challenging with the current generation of AI tools. For that reason, a product builder does not replace specialists but acts as a catalyst.
Is there anything to be afraid of?
We are seeing roles blur, with designers shipping code and product managers creating prototypes. But does this mean that existing specialists are at risk and that the only path forward is becoming a product builder? In my opinion, no. I have already addressed this in the previous section, and Jenny’s proposed archetypes reinforce that perspective.
Many people may also wonder whether they should be concerned that this kind of role will take their job, for example, a PM creating mockups. Personally, I do not see it that way. In most cases, these activities are about communicating through visuals and interactions, whether to explain a potential solution or to share a new product idea. This significantly improves communication, strengthens collaboration, and saves many hours of work.
Even though AI now handles a substantial portion of the execution, a specialist is still needed to judge whether the outcome is truly good and aligned with the overall strategy. Once again, this is reflected in the archetypes proposed by Jenny.
By saving time on execution, we can redirect resources toward what truly matters in building products: strategy, research, and system scalability.
Tools, processes, and areas of responsibility are evolving, but the need for deep expertise is not disappearing. Product builders represent a major acceleration in how digital products are created, not a replacement for specialists.
So will we all become Product Builders?
Coming back to the original question, all signs suggest this is not a passing trend but something that will stay with us for the long term.
Some organizations are already hiring for roles like this, while in others, it may remain out of reach for the next few years due to their size, risks, product complexity, or simply a lack of awareness.
Will this become the standard way of working in every organization in the future? We cannot predict that. What we can do, however, is pay close attention to what is happening in the market, deliberately expand our knowledge beyond design, and treat AI as a natural part of our everyday toolkit.
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