AI is Actually Really Good at Product Strategy

How to use AI to sharpen your strategy doc or pitch deck before that big meeting

Dear subscribers,

Today, I want to show you how to use AI to level up your strategy document or pitch deck before that big meeting with executives or investors.

I don’t use AI to draft my product strategy, but I do use it as a co-pilot to sharpen my thinking, spot gaps, and identify important discussion points before the meeting.

The trick, as always, is to give AI the right context. So let’s walk through:

1. Sharpening internal strategy docs with AI

2. Crafting compelling pitch decks with AI

3. My go-to AI prompt to level up any strategy document

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Sharpening internal strategy docs with AI

Give AI relevant context to get relevant feedback

In my real talk about product strategy post, I shared that a great strategy has a:

1. Diagnosis of the major challenges

2. Guiding plan to overcome the challenges based on a durable advantage

3. Set of actions to accomplish the plan (ideally no more than 3)

These principles come from Richard Rumelt’s book, but the truth is that every company approaches strategy documents and product reviews differently.

So to get AI to provide valuable feedback on your strategy, you should give it the best strategy guidelines and examples from your company.

For example, Amazon is famous for getting PMs to write press releases to imagine how customers might experience their product after it’s launched. So, I fed Amazon’s working backwards template and an example press release into AI with this prompt:

<template> Paste Amazon template </template>
<draft> Paste a draft press release/strategy doc </draft>

Please suggest specific copy or structure improvements to the <draft> given the <template> in order of priority. Format your suggestions as a numbered list with 2-3 sentences for each list item. Bold the first short sentence to make it easy to skim.

It gave me a list of clear, actionable suggestions like:

1. The one-sentence summary is missing. Add a clear summary right after the headline: "Amazon customers can now send personalized gift cards from local merchants nationwide, combining the convenience of online shopping with the thoughtfulness of supporting neighborhood businesses."

2. The opening problem statement is too long and buried. Restructure the first paragraph to lead with, "Today, customers sending gift cards have to choose between convenience and personalization." Then, follow with the solution. The current version takes too long to get to the point.

AI’s feedback will be nowhere near as targeted without the template.

Your company may have a different template or best-in-class examples. The point is to give AI those artifacts to get relevant suggestions.

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Getting AI feedback on pitch decks

You need a compelling pitch deck if you're raising money or seeking funding for a product internally. Luckily, Shaan Puri has put together one of the best pitch deck templates online. Get the template link and my custom AI strategy prompt below: