How product managers use AI to boost productivity and innovation success



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TLDR



In this episode of Product Mastery Now, Katie Trauth Taylor, PhD, CEO and co-founder of Narratize AI, joins me to discuss how AI is transforming product innovation processes. She shares insights from working with Fortune 500 companies like NASA, Boeing, and Comcast, and dives into research showing that product and R&D teams spend up to 70% of their time on documentation and communication rather than true innovation. Katie outlines four best practices for leveraging AI, including the use of knowledge hubs, AI agents, and robust documentation processes, to unlock productivity, capture tribal knowledge, and speed up time to market by as much as 46%. The conversation also highlights the importance of storytelling in gaining buy-in for new ideas and the potential for AI to revolutionize knowledge management and portfolio intelligence.



Introduction



 Product teams waste a lot of their time doing things that don’t help get to the heart of product innovation. We need to flip the script on that so that we can be more productive with our innovation efforts. In this discussion, you’re going to learn how companies like Boeing, Comcast, and others are accomplishing this. We’re going to talk about four specific approaches for unleashing AI for product innovation.



To help us with that is our guest, Dr. Katie Trauth Taylor. She is the CEO and co-founder of Narratize AI, and she helps R&D transform their scattered knowledge into a competitive advantage. She has worked with NASA, Boeing, and other Fortune 500 companies to cut documentation time and speed products to market. Katie discovered that innovators are spending too much of their time just trying to communicate their ideas, and she built an AI platform to improve this. She holds a PhD from Purdue University and has published peer-reviewed research on innovation storytelling that’s reshaping how teams work.



Find out more about the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) and next year’s innovation conference.



Summary of Concepts Discussed for Product Managers



The Problem with Documentation:Product teams spend roughly 70% of their time on documentation, reporting, and knowledge lookup instead of direct innovation. This significantly slows time to market.



AI as a Knowledge Capture Tool:Katie turned to large language models to transform how product teams do documentation. AI can systematically prompt and capture insights, store tribal knowledge, and automate documentation customized to roles and project phases.



The Power of Storytelling:Successful innovation relies on crafting compelling narratives, not just data. Five drivers for effective storytelling are empathy, engagement, alignment, evidence, and impact.



Best Practices for Leveraging AI in Product Teams:




* Think Outside the Chatbot: AI tools are a knowledge-capture capability, not just a question-and-answer capability. Use AI to prompt and store deep organizational insights, not just answer questions. Narratize AI provides workflows for product innovation processes like Agile and Jobs-To-Be-Done.



* Embrace AI Agents: Agents can provide proactive, role-specific updates (like regulatory changes or market intelligence) and work in the background.



* Documentation or It Didn’t Happen: Accurate, human-reviewed documentation is crucial for knowledge management and competitive advanta...