Essay2 min readAll writing

The AI PM Stack I Actually Use in 2026

A no-fluff list of the tools, frameworks, and workflows that make up my day-to-day as an AI product manager. No affiliate links. No sponsored mentions.

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ToolsAIProduct Management

Everyone has an opinion about what tools PMs should use. Most of those opinions are written by people who haven't shipped a product recently.

Here's my actual stack — the tools I use daily as an AI PM at a growth-stage product. No affiliate links. No sponsored mentions.

Research & Discovery

  • Perplexity Pro — for competitive research and fast fact-checking. Way faster than standard search for technical context.
  • PostHog — session replays over surveys. I want to watch what users do, not what they say.
  • Claude for interview synthesis — I feed transcripts in and ask for pattern analysis. Cuts hours of affinity mapping.
  • User interviews (old school, no tool) — for things that don't show up in data.

Roadmap & Prioritization

  • Linear — clean, fast, and the engineering team uses it natively. Reduces PM/eng translation overhead.
  • Notion for strategy docs — but only the ones people will actually read. Not as a second file system.
  • RICE scoring in a plain spreadsheet — Reach × Impact × Confidence ÷ Effort. Simple and honest about uncertainty.

Engineering Collaboration

  • GitHub — I read PRs. Not to review code, but to understand what's actually shipping versus what's in the spec.
  • Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) — we write these for non-obvious decisions. Incredibly useful 6 months later.
  • Loom — async walkthroughs for complex specs instead of a 30-minute meeting.

AI in the Workflow

  • Claude — spec drafting, content synthesis, working through complex product decisions as a thinking partner.
  • Cursor — even as a PM, I still write some code. Having AI in the editor is non-negotiable.
  • Fast prototyping via Claude Artifacts — show an idea rather than describe it.

Metrics

  • PostHog — events, funnels, retention. Self-hosted so we own the data.
  • Google Analytics 4 — for the acquisition side of the funnel.
  • A custom SQL dashboard — the only way to get the exact question answered without waiting for a data analyst.

The best PM tool is still asking "what would change our mind about this?" in every meeting.

The Honest Meta-Note

Tools don't make PMs good. Judgment does.

The PMs I've seen use the most tools are often the ones who are avoiding thinking. The ones who use fewer tools but use them deeply are almost always sharper.

Use the minimal stack that gets the job done. Add tools when you feel a specific pain, not before.