My Own Reflection for 2025

As this year comes to a close, I’ve found myself reflecting less on job titles and more on relevance.

Across tech and adjacent industries, we’ve seen widespread layoffs, hiring freezes, and a noticeable shift in how companies think about people, teams, and output. Even highly skilled professionals are facing uncertainty — not because they’re underperforming, but because the rules of value creation are changing.

When I recently asked whether PM roles would survive the rise of AI and LLMs, the most common response was “Not sure.”

That hesitation felt honest. And telling.

This Year Didn’t Change Roles — It Changed Expectations

This year made something very clear:

Companies are no longer optimizing for headcount — they’re optimizing for outcomes.

With AI dramatically reducing the cost of analysis, coordination, and execution, organizations are asking harder questions:

• How much human effort is truly required?

• Where does automation remove friction?

• Which work still needs judgment, context, and accountability?

This shift isn’t about replacing people with machines. It’s about redefining what meaningful contribution looks like.

Why So Many of Us Feel Uncertain

The uncertainty many people feel right now isn’t about fear of AI itself.

It’s about something deeper:

"Will the way I create value still matter next year?"

Roles built around process, handoffs, and manual effort are under pressure. At the same time, roles tied to decision-making, system design, growth, and leverage are becoming more important — even if they’re less clearly defined.

This is why the answer “not sure” keeps coming up. Because clarity hasn’t caught up with reality yet.

How I Personally Responded to This Shift

In a tougher job market, I made a conscious decision to lean into consulting — not as a temporary workaround, but as a way to stay aligned with where companies are actually struggling.

I now spend my time helping teams:

• Identify inefficiencies that no longer make sense in an AI-enabled world

• Design self-serve funnels that reduce dependency on human intervention

• Improve onboarding, activation, and retention using automation

• Do more with smaller teams — without sacrificing customer experience

This work exists because the market is demanding it. Not because it’s trendy — but because it’s necessary.

The Market Has Become Ruthlessly Practical

One of the clearest lessons from this year:

Activity is no longer enough. Documentation, meetings, and process only matter if they lead to measurable outcomes. The market is rewarding people who can:

• Remove friction

• Increase adoption

• Reduce cost

• Create leverage

• Design systems that scale without proportional headcount growth

If your work doesn’t connect to one of these, it’s increasingly hard to defend.

What Staying Relevant Looks Like Right Now

Staying relevant today doesn’t mean chasing every new AI tool or reinventing your identity overnight.

It means being willing to let go of rigid role definitions, and instead focusing on how value is actually created now — not how it was created five years ago.

In practice, that looks like:

• Working with AI instead of around it

• Moving closer to real business constraints and measurable outcomes

• Designing leverage, not just executing tasks

• Adapting as expectations shift, rather than waiting for clarity

Relevance is no longer static.
It’s something you actively maintain — and that requires continuous adaptation.

A Quiet Year-End Thought

This year didn’t come with a clean playbook or clear answers. What it did offer was a strong signal:

Stability no longer comes from titles. It comes from relevance.

As we head into the next year, the most important question isn’t what role you hold — it’s what problem you help solve, and how effectively you solve it.

That reflection, more than any prediction, feels worth carrying forward.