Three Product Workflows to Contend With

AI has accelerated how products are built — but it’s also fractured the way teams work. What used to be a single, structured product development process has splintered into three parallel workstreams.

The traditional workflow still exists: PM drafts a PRD, design creates the experience, engineering reviews and builds, code ships. Deliberate, documented, predictable — but slower.

Then there’s the engineering-led AI build. Engineers leverage design system components to rapidly deploy AI features with minimal design involvement. Speed becomes paramount at experience’s expense. Design teams join late for remediation. Features ship untested and often miss user expectations.

And the AI-generated path: PMs or designers use AI tools to spin up entire interfaces and code. Output is handed to engineering for refactoring. No research, no user intent, no design review. Outcomes: inconsistent, fragile user experiences.

We’ve introduced two additional, chaotic workstreams when we rarely had the first one running efficiently.

We’ve introduced two additional, chaotic workstreams when we rarely had the first one running efficiently. The absence of strong direction produces misaligned features, team exhaustion from constant rework, and missed competitive advantages.

The fix: unify all workstreams under one product vision. Integrate design earlier in all workflows. Create AI-literate teams with guardrails. And redefine “done” from “shipped code” to “validated solutions meeting users and business requirements.”