Creating a high-performing product is no longer enough. In 2025, impact takes precedence. Product Marketing Manager, Design System Manager, Product Analyst, and AI Product Manager—these four strategic roles are reshaping the game. Discover why they have become essential through exclusive insights from Thiga experts.
“I need a hero,” sang Bonnie Tyler. A heartfelt cry that could just as well come from companies in the Product ecosystem as 2025 approaches. The looming wave of AI that must be ridden to avoid drowning, tense economic and ecological prospects, a saturated market... Many challenges lie ahead, and the stakes are high. In this context, quasi-providential profiles are emerging, ready to come to the rescue of companies.
AI Product Manager: the savior of your artificial intelligence features
Without being Superman, the AI Product Manager (PM) steps in to assist organizations venturing into the treacherous waters of artificial intelligence. This PM specializes in AI products, whether simple features or standalone models. They identify problems and opportunities that AI—be it generative or predictive—can address. Ultimately, they experiment with building features and models to ensure they solve the identified problem. Market-savvy, they test new technologies to see how they can benefit their company and share their findings with their teams to keep them one step ahead.
“When experimenting with AI, you’re never sure it will work. While some use cases are more mature than others, creating an AI-based model or solution is a bit like R&D,” says Abdessamad Benhalima, Head of Thiga’s Data & AI Tribe. He insists that a sufficient understanding of technical concepts is essential to make the most of AI technologies. “The AI PM can reduce this uncertainty by mitigating risks as much as possible. At the same time, they can explain the reasons for this uncertainty to stakeholders, simplifying the information to make it clear and accessible to everyone.”
Without such an expert, organizations risk, at best, failing to maximize AI’s impact or, at worst, using it in vain—focusing on the technical aspect at the expense of the business one. “This opens the door to initiatives that take too long and ultimately serve no purpose, either because they don’t address a user need or because they won’t be adopted sufficiently. Soon, AI will become just another solution PMs can use to solve a problem. But having a specialist still makes sense because this field is constantly evolving, and these technologies haven’t reached full maturity. By 2026, being an AI Product Manager will have become the norm.” In the meantime, an AI PM can still provide invaluable support.
Product Marketing Manager: Helping Your Product Take Off in the Market
Who better than Tony Stark—aka Iron Man—to combine technological prowess with commercial success? The answer is simple: the Product Marketing Manager (PMM). This role ensures the sustainable commercial development of a product by defining the Go-To-Market strategy (who to sell it to and why) and supporting the company’s marketing and sales activities. By targeting the right audience, the PMM ensures long-term product adoption.
In the digital realm, the PMM role is very similar to that of a product manager in consumer goods: highly market-focused. As digital products emerged, PMs were often assigned the Product Owner role. Naturally, this created a gap. “Having a Product Manager is not enough. Due to the complexity of development cycles, PMs are heavily pulled towards Tech and have much less time to handle the marketing aspect of their role,” says Hortense Bouzoud, Head of Thiga’s Product Marketing Tribe. “Bringing a PMM into the process puts more emphasis on value. It’s an important asset, and PMs should feel comfortable relying on PMMs for this.”
Some believe this role is unnecessary because they have a good product. After all, a good product should sell itself, right? Well think again! “Today, digital products offering a great user experience have become the norm. The market is saturated. Positioning and communication are increasingly important because they enable you to communicate a clear value proposition in a targeted way,” the expert emphasizes. In fact, the correlation between product growth and Product Marketing has been established. A May 2024 McKinsey article reported that the most successful software companies have a ratio of 1 PMM to 2 PMs. So why miss out?
Design System Manager: The Guardian of a Cohesive Experience
The Design System Manager isn’t a Guardian of the Galaxy, but they are the guardian of your Design System (DS). This role is crucial, given how vital this resource has become for today’s businesses. To put it simply, a Design System acts as a shared reference that aligns the company around a unified vision of the user experience. A veritable encyclopedia of the company’s Product elements, it allows teams to reuse previously developed design and technical components. This not only saves time and money but also ensures a consistent experience throughout the user journey and across all brand channels.
With a solid Design System, generative AI can potentially accelerate design processes massively. But without a DS Manager, it simply won’t work.
And what about the DS Manager? “They’re the conductor of the Design System,” explains Antoine Barbotin, Head of Thiga’s Design Tribe, with a smile. “They lead the DS team and ensure it aligns with the company’s strategic objectives. They also evolve it through user research, measure satisfaction and adoption to identify potential areas for improvement… just like a traditional product!” Above all, they are responsible for its adoption: “This is crucial! What we’ve seen with DS projects we’ve supported—such as at Accor, Carrefour, Decathlon, and Orange—is that the real challenge is organization-wide adoption. Once teams bypass the Design System to create interfaces, it becomes useless. Game over.” In fact, companies like Accor do not hesitate to appoint multiple Design System Managers across the various brands they manage to ensure global adoption and coherence.
Today’s constraints demand better design rationalization, making a Design System indispensable. “We face increasing budgetary constraints, raising questions like: How can we do more with less? How can we act responsibly and reduce our ecological impact? The DS provides answers to these questions, not to mention AI,” Antoine Barbotin asserts. “With a robust Design System, generative AI could significantly speed up design processes. But without a DS Manager, it’s a waste of money!” A great power may come with great responsibility, but a great Design System requires a great Design System Manager.
Product Analyst: Ensuring the Right Decisions
The Product Analyst may not read minds like Professor Xavier does, but they do read data. A talent that is invaluable in a tight economic context where every decision must be well-considered and justified. “Money doesn’t flow as freely as it used to. We need to make better decisions than before. The margin for error is a luxury we can no longer afford,” says Benjamin Danel, Product Organization Expert and Coach. And the best way to make informed decisions is to be data-informed.
“It’s vital to have someone working closely with teams daily to gather data, centralize insights, and help the PM make good decisions while fostering a data culture within the team.” This allows PMs to save time and focus on their real value: making strategic decisions or managing increasingly demanding stakeholders.
“Today, management keeps a closer eye on things. There’s a greater need for factual arguments to prove the value and impact of decisions,” the Product expert continues. “The Product Analyst is an investment, but they can help pinpoint the right areas to focus on. Instead of paying multiple developers to build something that won’t be used, it’s better to invest a little time upfront to validate the relevance of these developments using data. An additional benefit is that you combat ‘meetingitis’ by providing data-backed consensus points, speeding up decision-making.”
The job title doesn’t matter—Product Analyst, Data Analyst, Performance Analyst... What’s important is having someone regularly and closely connected to the team. “Without this role, bottlenecks form, and teams, pressured by time-to-market issues, have no choice but to handle data themselves, often at the expense of other tasks or skipping it altogether.” Can you really do without this superpower to quickly illuminate your path? That’s up to you.
While it’s clear that ambitious companies can no longer afford to overlook the Fantastic Four, it would be misguided to think they can solve everything. Organizational structure remains a key factor in individual and collective performance. It’s through a comprehensive, team-focused approach that success will come. After all, even the most illustrious superheroes achieved their greatest feats as a team.