"PMs who use AI will replace those who don't": Google's AI product lead on the new PM toolkit

Brief Summary:
This video offers a whirlwind, step-by-step demonstration of how Product Managers (PMs) can harness AI tools to supercharge the entire product development process—from user research to demo videos—in under 30 minutes. Google's Marily Nika showcases practical, easy-to-copy tricks, including AI-powered Reddit research, automated PRD generation, prototyping, and persuasive video creation. The episode is a practical guide for any PM wanting to work faster, more creatively, and more persuasively in 2025's AI-driven landscape.

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1. Introduction: The Age of the AI-Enhanced Product Manager

The talk opens with Marily Nika's core question: How can I be an AI-enhanced PM? Earlier, Marily worked in AI before it was mainstream, collaborating directly with scientists on foundational technologies like speech recognition. But since 2017, with rapid advances in accessible AI tools, her focus has shifted. Now, it's all about being better, faster, and making more impact using new AI capabilities.

"When all these tools we use every day started appearing, I began figuring out: how can I be an AI-enhanced PM? How can I be better at my job, have more impact, and be more productive?"

Claire Vo, the host, introduces Marily's session as a "speedrun" through her favorite workflow: mining user opinions, creating requirement docs, prototyping, and even selling your product vision with AI-generated videos. The stage is set to demonstrate these tools using one playful example: the smart fridge.

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2. The Smart Fridge Use Case: From Inspiration to Consumer Insights

Marily draws inspiration from a real moment: seeing an "items expiring soon" warning on her fridge. Surprised both by the feature (and that Coca-Cola could expire!), she posted about it on LinkedIn. The post went viral, flooding her with PMs' comments and sparking new product ideas.

She frames her challenge: If you're a PM tasked to build a smart fridge for busy families, where do you begin? The answer is clear: with user research.

Traditionally, this would mean working with a research team or agency. But now, she jumps straight into Perplexity AI, a tool that can mine Reddit discussions for unfiltered opinions:

"Within minutes, I can literally see what the entirety of the world is thinking about. We have opinions in our hands and can split and filter them."

She demonstrates searching Reddit for whether families want a smart fridge. Even better, she has Perplexity create two agents: one arguing 'for' and one 'against' the product, debating twenty rounds with evidence from real users to uncover the minimum features needed to win over skeptics.

"Create two items: one pro-smart fridge and one against. Have them debate at least 20 times and give me the minimum set of features needed to convince the 'against' agent."

This instant "pro/con debate" is what Marily calls pure gold: it fast-tracks discovering what will make the product succeed.

Claire highlights a lesson for all PMs:

"Prompt AI to create two different personas in its analysis: one that's very for, one very against. Have them do a hypothetical debate, then deconstruct that debate to find the most convincing arguments and features."

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3. Turning Research into Requirements: AI-Generated PRDs

With actionable feature insights in hand, Marily introduces her next "tool hop": a custom GPT built to generate product requirement documents (PRDs) in her personal style.

"Now, I copy the minimum set of features and prompt my AI Product GPT to 'generate a PRD about a smart fridge with these features'. And just like that, I get a PRD tailored in my own voice."

The magic lies in combining structured prompts (the features) with style ("in my own voice") to produce a professional PRD in seconds—a task that used to take hours. Marily advises:

"The more you combine structure and content in your prompts, the higher the quality of your results."

Within three minutes for research and ninety seconds for PRD drafting, she's ready for the next phase.

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4. From PRD to Prototype: Interactive Design with v0

With the PRD complete, Marily puts on her "AI builder hat." The aim now is to make the idea tangible for stakeholders, so she turns to v0.dev, an AI prototyping tool, pasting in the detailed PRD.

"The next step as a PM is to actually create a prototype, so that my stakeholders can see my vision come to life."

She points out that a well-crafted PRD makes the prototype much better. While it's tempting to rush and prototype from a vague prompt, she learned it's faster overall to take time on the PRD up front.

"The number of tweaks I had to do later was overwhelming. Spending more time to make sure the input is good really pays off."

The resulting UI for the smart fridge is vivid: door status widgets ("Did you leave the freezer open for ice cream again?"), temperature controls, power usage, and, crucially, a privacy badge for local-only processing—a key user concern.

She emphasizes the power of prototypes:

"If you want to convince stakeholders or leadership to invest resources, let them click through and experience your product idea. It's so much more credible and effective than just a slide deck."

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5. Influencing with AI-Generated Video: Flow & Sora

Now it's time to "sell the vision." For this, Marily uses the latest text-to-video models: Flow (by Google Labs) and Sora (by OpenAI).

She shows how to generate a short, animated video showing "a couple using a smart fridge with these features," again with just a pasted PRD or quick narrative. The tool even lets you tweak the format, from aspect ratio to music.

"People really want to experience what the product would look like from the user's perspective. And now we have amazing tools that go from text to video."

There are playful moments as the AI over-focuses on the "fridge door open" warning—demonstrating the value of fine-tuning prompts, and perhaps including more story-driven "narratives" to guide the video.

Marily also demos Sora's "cameo" feature by generating a video with herself and Mark Cuban opening a smart fridge packed with Mediterranean foods (the Greek salad was a delightful touch!):

"It came up with a little dialogue and added two people. I mean, this is magic."

Claire sums up the workflow marvel:

"We've done full end-to-end user research using Reddit, created a defensible feature set, crafted a PRD, prototyped, and even made a video—all in about 20 minutes. This was never possible before."

Marily drives home the broader shift:

"It's not that AI is taking over. PMs who use AI are going to take over the roles of those who don't."

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6. Tool Hopping: Why Combining AI Tools Is More Powerful

Throughout the demo, Marily stresses that using a suite of specialized AI tools—"tool hopping"—is far stronger than relying on just one do-it-all app. Each tool shines for a specific stage: Perplexity for user insights, custom GPTs for PRDs, v0 for prototyping, Flow and Sora for storytelling.

"Explore and adapt. See which tools fit your workflow—they might not be the same for everyone."

This approach lets PMs move at "AI speed," cycling through research, documentation, prototyping, and pitching—sometimes in minutes.

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7. AI as Judge: NotebookLM for Product Demo Days

Marily's final use case is as an educator, where she runs an AI Product Management bootcamp. For demo day, she wanted not just human but AI judges. Enter NotebookLM—Google's tool for analyzing and summarizing data.

She records every team's pitch, uploads the audio files, and asks NotebookLM to select the winners based on innovation, impact, and storytelling.

"NotebookLM judged projects like a real host—grouping pain points, explaining judging criteria, and even announcing the winners in an interactive, podcast-like format. It was magical!"

This not only made judging scalable for 200+ people but also opened up new educational uses, like giving third-party feedback in pitch competitions or sales training.

"It feels like you're talking to real podcast hosts. Everyone loves it!"

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8. Mastering Prompts: What To Do When AI "Goes Off Script"

Wrapping up, Marily offers her best advice when AI tools "just aren't getting you what you want" (like Veo generating fridges with too many screens):

"The best thing you can do is kill that instance and use Gen AI to help you write the best prompt. The longer and more detailed your prompt, the fewer iterations you'll need. Use AI on AI!"

Her go-to recipe: don't waste time struggling manually—let another AI help craft a better prompt.

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9. Where to Find Marily & Closing Notes

Marily invites those curious about AI product management to connect with her on LinkedIn or join her bootcamp, where every team gets matched with engineers to launch real products—no more tedious tool-hopping with her new all-in-one platform.

"Join my bootcamp! You'll get three certifications and build a product end to end. There's a brand new tool coming, and I can't wait to see what apps you all create."

The show wraps with encouragement for viewers to like, subscribe, and review the podcast.

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Final Thoughts

This episode is an actionable masterclass in modern, AI-powered product management. Marily Nika shows that PMs who adapt and innovate with AI tools will redefine what's possible—often in minutes, not months. Whether you're a beginner or a veteran, the clear, practical workflow here is a wake-up call: now is the time to become an AI-enhanced PM!

"The way we do product has changed forever. And it's the PMs who use AI who will replace those who don't." 🚀