Teach an AI to Think Like You
Custom GPTs for PMs
The best managers create leverage. They realize how AI can extend their management philosophy, improve team output, and free them to focus on what truly matters.
In our last article, we explored the fast-evolving AI agent landscape—from Codex to Jules and Google's Agent Mode—and how these systems are shifting AI’s role from passive assistants to active collaborators. But there's another equally powerful trend emerging alongside agents: custom GPTs—AI systems specifically tailored to mirror your thinking, your frameworks, and your leadership style.
If AI agents are the teammates helping you ship faster, custom GPTs are the extensions of your managerial brain—providing clarity, consistency, and context to your team, even when you're not in the room.
Management Is a Scaling Problem
As a PM, your most limited resource isn’t funding or engineering—it’s your time and attention. Every decision, piece of feedback, or coaching moment competes for your focus. The more effective you are, the more demand there is on your judgment. This is why great managers constantly seek leverage—systems, tools, and frameworks that allow them to extend their impact without needing to be directly involved in every detail.
Custom GPTs offer one of the most powerful leverage opportunities we've seen.
They don’t replace your judgment—they scale it.
They don’t automate decision-making—they enhance decision quality.
They don’t make your voice louder—they make it clearer and more consistent.
Let’s dive into five powerful ways custom GPTs can elevate your leadership and transform how your team operates.
1. Build GPTs That Think Like You
The most useful GPTs aren’t just responsive—they’re reflective of your unique leadership style.
🧠 Reverse Engineer Your Decision-Making
Start by articulating how you think:
Your maxims: “Perfect is the enemy of good,” “Speed over polish in discovery,” etc.
Your red lines: Late feedback, lack of evidence, ambiguous user value.
Your decision hierarchies: When speed trumps thoroughness, when clarity beats creativity.
Then, collect real-world examples:
Past approvals, rejections, and feedback.
Scenarios that caused friction or led to great outcomes.
Use these to build hypothetical decision scenarios, with your preferred responses. These become your GPT’s test cases.
🛠️ Example: A PM at a B2B SaaS company created a “Product Proposal Evaluator GPT” based on 20+ previous decisions. Now her team gets pre-review feedback that’s consistent with her voice—saving her hours each month while increasing idea quality.
2. Turn Managerial Instinct into Evaluation Rubrics
If you find yourself saying, “I’ll know it when I see it,” that’s a red flag. Great managers make expectations visible.
🧩 Create Rubrics for Key Areas
Whether it’s assessing a product demo or reviewing a roadmap, structure your feedback into:
Dimensions: Clarity, customer impact, risk analysis
Levels: Needs Improvement → Meets Expectations → Exceeds Expectations
Examples: What “Exceeds” looks like in practice
🤖 Implement It in GPTs
Teach your custom GPT to use your rubric. Ask it to:
Score documents or ideas
Provide coaching feedback
Offer concrete improvements
🛠️ Example: An engineering lead created a "Code Review Quality GPT" that junior devs run before submitting PRs. Result? 40% fewer revision requests and happier seniors.
3. Improve Team Communication Without Doing All the Edits Yourself
GPTs can dramatically raise the floor on writing and presentations—freeing you from line editing.
✍️ Writing Assistance
Style Mirror: Compare team docs to your org’s best writing. Suggest edits.
Clarity First: Identify where logic breaks down or jargon creeps in.
Format Enforcer: Check against preferred templates (e.g., PRDs, RFCs).
🖼️ Presentation Coaching
Narrative Arc Analyzer: Ensure there's a clear story from problem to solution.
Executive Readiness: Add tough questions execs will ask.
Visual Clarity: Check slide structure and design principles.
🛠️Example: A marketing director trained a "Brand Voice GPT" using top-performing emails and campaigns. Now junior marketers review content through the GPT first—cutting down revisions and driving up campaign results.
4. Scale Your Processes—Even If Your Team Isn’t Tech-Savvy
You don’t need prompt engineering skills or complex workflows. You just need to capture your process.
📦 Create “Management in a Box” GPTs
For example:
1:1 prep GPT
Project kickoff GPT
Retrospective facilitator GPT
🧭 Build Decision Support Tools
Document how you assess trade-offs—then use GPTs to help team members pre-emptively navigate choices.
📚 Build GPTs as Learning Accelerators
Have a new hire? Create a GPT that guides them through onboarding, internal tools, or product history.
🛠️ Example: A sales manager built GPTs for every type of client meeting. Result? 30% faster ramp-up for new reps, 45% less prep time for senior ones.
5. Increase Your Strategic Influence with Stronger Written POVs
GPTs can also help you write more persuasively and strategically—especially when communicating up or across.
🧠 “Strategic Lens” GPT
Ensure your memo aligns with org-wide goals. Use leadership language. Connect execution to strategy.
👥 “Stakeholder Simulator” GPT
Review comms from the perspective of marketing, engineering, or execs. Adjust language accordingly.
📈 “Evidence Strengthener” GPT
Test whether you’ve included the right proof points—user quotes, data, timelines—and ask the GPT to suggest what’s missing.
🛠️Example: An operations manager created a “Strategic Comms GPT.” Her once-tactical updates are now strategic briefs. She’s since been invited to exec-level planning sessions.
💼 Real-World Use Cases: Bring Your Thinking to the Table
⚠️ Don’t Skip This: Risks and Limits
Don’t assume it’s always right: Your GPT will reflect what you feed it. If the training docs are outdated or inconsistent, so will its advice be.
Avoid over-automation: Let your GPT support judgment, not replace it.
Respect privacy: Never upload sensitive internal data unless you have proper clearance and use secure environments.
🧭 Final Thought: You Are the Product
If AI agents are teammates, custom GPTs are your distributed operating system. They carry your voice, principles, and expectations to every corner of your team—even when you’re not around. As we continue to explore AI's role in product management, this new category of tools offers unprecedented leverage. The managers who win in this new landscape won’t just use AI to move faster—they’ll use it to scale their leadership.
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Stay tuned each week as we bring you new opportunities. Happy job hunting.