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Main Authors: Ulloa, Mara, Butler, Jenna L., Haniyur, Sankeerti, Miller, Courtney, Amos, Barrett, Sarkar, Advait, Storey, Margaret-Anne
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02504
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author Ulloa, Mara
Butler, Jenna L.
Haniyur, Sankeerti
Miller, Courtney
Amos, Barrett
Sarkar, Advait
Storey, Margaret-Anne
author_facet Ulloa, Mara
Butler, Jenna L.
Haniyur, Sankeerti
Miller, Courtney
Amos, Barrett
Sarkar, Advait
Storey, Margaret-Anne
contents Generative AI (GenAI) is changing the nature of knowledge work, particularly for Product Managers (PMs) in software development teams. While much software engineering research has focused on developers' interactions with GenAI, there is less understanding of how the work of PMs is evolving due to GenAI. To address this gap, we conducted a mixed-methods study at Microsoft, a large, multinational software company: surveying 885 PMs, analyzing telemetry data for a subset of PMs (N=731), and interviewing a subset of 15 PMs. We contribute: (1) PMs' current GenAI adoption rates, uses cases, and perceived benefits and barriers and; (2) a framework capturing how PMs assess which tasks to delegate to GenAI; (3) PMs adaptation practices for integrating GenAI into their roles and perceptions of how their role is evolving. We end by discussing implications on the broader GenAI workflow adoption process and software development roles.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_02504
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Product Manager Practices for Delegating Work to Generative AI: "Accountability must not be delegated to non-human actors"
Ulloa, Mara
Butler, Jenna L.
Haniyur, Sankeerti
Miller, Courtney
Amos, Barrett
Sarkar, Advait
Storey, Margaret-Anne
Software Engineering
Generative AI (GenAI) is changing the nature of knowledge work, particularly for Product Managers (PMs) in software development teams. While much software engineering research has focused on developers' interactions with GenAI, there is less understanding of how the work of PMs is evolving due to GenAI. To address this gap, we conducted a mixed-methods study at Microsoft, a large, multinational software company: surveying 885 PMs, analyzing telemetry data for a subset of PMs (N=731), and interviewing a subset of 15 PMs. We contribute: (1) PMs' current GenAI adoption rates, uses cases, and perceived benefits and barriers and; (2) a framework capturing how PMs assess which tasks to delegate to GenAI; (3) PMs adaptation practices for integrating GenAI into their roles and perceptions of how their role is evolving. We end by discussing implications on the broader GenAI workflow adoption process and software development roles.
title Product Manager Practices for Delegating Work to Generative AI: "Accountability must not be delegated to non-human actors"
topic Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02504