We were briefed on a Customer Journey Experience role this month that stalled partway through. Not because the business ran out of money.
The client had accelerated its AI strategy internally and wanted to understand how AI could reshape the function before committing to a permanent hire.
What “pausing to reassess” looks like from the inside
Rather than cancel the role, the client started exploring AI tools that could map customer journeys, surface friction points and distinguish between customer pathways with more precision than their existing process allowed.
They’ve paused the hire, are reassessing the scope, and expect the role to look meaningfully different in around three months.
I think this is a more useful example than another AI adoption statistic, because it shows the mechanism. Roles aren’t only stalling because of budget constraints.
They’re increasingly being redefined because organisations want to know where AI creates the most value before they commit headcount to it permanently.
Teams are restructuring faster than job descriptions can keep up
What stalled the Customer Journey role isn’t unusual. Product teams everywhere are restructuring around AI faster than their job descriptions are being rewritten to reflect it.
Productboard’s State of AI in Product Management survey backs this up: every team it surveyed is now using AI in some form, and 98 per cent have changed, or are planning to change, their team structure because of it. 94% of product professionals use it daily or often, saving an average of 4 hours per task. The structure is moving faster than the paperwork, and that gap is exactly where roles like this one get stuck.
What AI still can’t do for you
The PMs standing out in our briefs can point to a specific decision AI materially changed, and explain exactly why they made the call they did. That kind of specificity is the tell.
It tracks with separate research from Atlassian, cited alongside Productboard’s findings: AI is freeing up real time on drafting and documentation, but prioritisation, planning and advanced analytics remain largely human work.
Three things to act on before your next product hire
First, before you write the brief, decide whether the role needs to be redefined around AI now or in six months. A vague, brief, mid-transition write-up is what stalls roles, not the AI itself.
Second, build a depth filter into your interview process. Ask candidates to walk you through one specific moment where AI changed a decision they made, and listen for the reasoning, not the tool name.
Third, be explicit in the brief about which parts of the role AI is expected to take on and which parts remain human. Candidates are increasingly asking this upfront, and a brief that hasn’t worked it out yet is a weaker brief.
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