What if AI isn’t solving unclear communication, but making indecision sound more convincing?
AI may be making an old product problem worse: it turns unclear decisions into clear-sounding messages. No owner? AI can make that sound collaborative. No decision? It becomes “an opportunity for further alignment.” Nobody knows what happens next? Apparently, “the team will continue exploring the available options.” Beautiful sentences. Still no idea who is doing what.
A surprising amount of product work involves polishing messages whose real problem is not the wording. Underneath sits an uncomfortable set of questions: Who decides? Who acts? Who accepts the risk? And who explains the outcome when everyone else suddenly has a dentist appointment? AI is excellent at helping us avoid that discomfort. Give it a mildly panicked draft, and seconds later the confusion is wearing a blazer. This affects junior product managers trying to move a feature forward and senior leaders navigating competing priorities. Different altitude, same fog.
AI can still help. We just need to stop asking only: “Can you improve this message?” Before rewriting, ask: “What decision is missing, and who owns it?” “What could each reader misunderstand?” “What needs to happen next, who will do it, and by when?” Then improve the message. Good communication should expose ambiguity, not professionally moisturize it. Otherwise, AI will happily produce a beautifully structured summary of a meeting in which nothing was decided. It may even add bullet points.