Product teams share their thoughts on AI, work, in new Atlassian ‘State of Product 2007’ report
Organizations work hard to differentiate their products in the marketplace, but the introduction of AI into product development is leaving product owners and managers fearing that AI-native competitors will quickly match any new capabilities, according to Atlassian’s State of Product 2027 report.
Aside from the competitors, respondents say they have a fear that using AI to deliver new products will lead to product failure. The report revealed that 76% of product teams fear failure, which is down by 8% from last year’s report, and only 13% say they’re “very concerned,” which is less than half as many reported last year.
“Product folks are worried about standing out as vibe-coded and AI-first products flood the market, but fewer seem certain their own products are destined for failure.,” Atlassian wrote in its report. “In times of upheaval, we’re all concerned with how to keep up. But those fears aren’t necessarily an indicator that teams aren’t doing well: they just indicate industry awareness.”
Interestingly, the report found that as the role for developers shifts, they find they are spending less time on the work that attracted them to the industry in the first place. Only 26% of respondents said their job still reflects what originally attracted them to the role, while 29% said they get to spend little or no time on the things that attracted them. And 67% agree that it’s hard to clearly define what their role now is. But because AI can generate code faster than humans can, they are finding satisfaction working on higher-level tasks, such as driving revenue, market share and profitability (45%); creating solutions that address customer needs (43%); collaborating with cross-functional teams to turn ideas into reality (41%); engaging with and understanding customer feedback (36%) and shaping product strategy and vision (35%).
In the report, Atlassian wrote, “Overall, teams seem to be responding to heightened competition by bringing their A-game. We’re not doing as much of what we originally loved about the field, but we’re finding new ways to be fulfilled.”
A snapshot of other issues found:
- AI is out of the pilot stage, with 99% of product teams reporting they have fully integrated AI into at least one workflow
- Job roles are expanding, not merging, wtih 89% saying they use AI for work previously handled by another function. Ai has created two new tasks: cleaning up “work slop” and babysitting agtents
- Bottlenecks are shifting, with 80% of teams saying they are shipping product faster but customers aren’t seeing the benefit any sooner
- AI is starting to deliver what teams want, with product documentation being the most-wanted use case, but their “wish list” use case — prioritization — hadn’t yet been realized
Compared with last year’s report, it’s clear that gains in productivity, use of time and understanding their role have been positive. According to Atlassian, “This year’s data shows AI moving along the maturity curve, and delivering more of the wins it originally promised. 53% of product teams have won back time for strategy with AI. Other important tasks, like market research, product validation, and skill-building, weren’t far behind. That’s a significant win over last year, when people didn’t have enough time for strategy, despite AI saving them up to 2 hours a day. AI has matured enough to help with the high-value tasks people want it to, and it’s freeing up capacity for human-only work.”
Read the full report to learn more.
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