2025 marks the 10th year of ProductPlan’s State of Product Management Report, the annual publication of our research on shifts, trends, and challenges in the world of product management.
Over the last decade, product management has undergone quite a transformation. Many organizations have shifted from traditional spreadsheets and slide decks, to designated product management platforms. Product management practices have evolved in response to shifting priorities, such as: defining a clear product strategy, improving transparency with stakeholders (see our blog: How to Communicate Your Roadmap to Stakeholders), AI innovation, and many more internal and external factors.
This year we surveyed nearly 400 product professionals of differing job functions, seniority, organizational sizes, and geographic locations. Our research revealed some key insights that we’re excited to share with you.
1. Product strategy is a central focus
Product management tools vary widely in the areas of product management that they support. For this reason, we were curious to know which area was the most important investment for product organizations. 39% of our survey respondents identified product strategy as the most important area of investment.
When asked who defines product strategy within their organizations, the largest share of respondents (36%) selected senior leadership, an increase from 31% in 2024.
While defining product strategy is critical for aligning your product organization on common goals, effectively communicating that strategy is equally important. To gain insight into strategy communication, we surveyed respondents about their methods, the perceived effectiveness of those methods, and their confidence that the strategy is actually understood. To dive deeper into the findings, download the full 2025 State of Product Management Report!
2. Product teams favor tool consolidation
An emerging trend we’ve identified in recent years is the increasing preference among product teams for consolidating their tools. We asked participants, ‘Are you currently experiencing or have you recently experienced tool consolidation?’ Compared to 2024, we observed a notable increase in the percentage of ‘yes’ responses.
In the full report, we dive deeper into the factors that compel product teams to consolidate tools. In summary, the top reasons selected were the need for standardizing tools across teams, budget constraints, and data silos/lack of visibility.
We asked respondents to review a list of product management jobs and indicate which ones they thought should be handled within the same tool (allowing for multiple selections). The top three most-selected jobs were product strategy, roadmapping, and prioritization.
We’d be remiss not to mention that ProductPlan combines these three jobs into one, straightforward platform. Strategy, the most-selected answer above, is the core of ProductPlan’s platform and a key differentiating factor. We tie objectives and key results (OKRs) planning directly to roadmapping and prioritization to create a cohesive, big picture of your product vision.
If you’re curious about consolidating with ProductPlan and learning about our robust integrations with other tools, feel free to schedule a consultation.
3. AI is more prevalent (and more concerning)
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a buzzworthy topic in product management in recent years. Whether you’re an eager early adopter of AI or tired of hearing about AI, the technology seems to be here to stay. We were curious to measure the progression of AI adoption in product teams in this year’s report. We asked participants to identify which stage of the AI journey their organization was in.
The results revealed that a larger percentage of product teams are in the later stages of their AI journeys compared to last year.. 92% of organizations are somewhere on their adoption journey, and 46% have adopted AI to support at least one use case.
While the percentage of organizations with at least one use case is impressive, it’s not as high as one might expect given AI’s prevalence as a topic. Our theory: product organizations are moving away from adopting AI for AI’s sake and instead taking a more thoughtful approach.. AI innovation is timely and costly, so organizations will only pursue initiatives that add real business value. In the report, we dive deeper into the AI use cases our respondents identified as most valuable.
But wait, there’s even more in the report!
Here we’ve highlighted three major trends: product strategy, tool consolidation, and AI adoption. Many more areas of product management have changes to explore, and we do so in the full 2025 State of Product Management Report. Here’s a glimpse at other topics we investigated:
- Prioritization decisions and prioritization methods
- The different success metrics organizations use
- Shifts in organizational structure and reporting
- Challenges and opportunities in product management
We don’t want you to miss out on the full picture of product management in 2025. With current, data-backed insights, you can compare your own product organization’s processes and consider changes that might add value and efficiency. The report is free to download, and you can do so here.
