In 2025, the field of product management is facing unprecedented changes and opportunities. The rapid development of AI technology, the rise of new energy vehicles, the globalization of Chinese brands, and the upgrading of the industrial Internet have all brought new challenges and directions to product people. This article will sort out several directions worth paying attention to for product people in 2025, from emerging hotspots to stable development, to low-key and pragmatic choices, to help you find a development path that suits you in a complex and changeable market.
I will try my best to use the information I have obtained, combined with the real market changes, industry structure, and the observations I have accumulated over the years, to talk about several directions that I personally think are still worth recommending in 2025 and are also suitable for the development of ordinary product people.
1. New hot spots and new trend directions: the outlet worth carding in advance
If in the past few years we have experienced the “awakening period” of AI from technology to application, then starting in 2025, product people will usher in the stage of really participating in the “landing battle”.
1. AI application and tool direction
This area can basically be divided into two sub-directions: B-side AI platform/solution-based products, such as enterprise agent construction, intelligent processing tools, intelligent recommendation engines, and old products + AI to form a new combination; and C-end tools/social/entertainment products, such as AI writing assistants, AI drawing, and AI virtual human socialization.
To achieve these three challenges, product managers will only continue to appreciate
Good product managers are very scarce, and product managers who understand users, business, and data are still in demand when they go out of the Internet. On the contrary, if you only do simple communication, inefficient execution, and shallow thinking, I am afraid that you will not be able to go through the torrent of the next 3-5 years.
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What these directions have in common is that there is a lot of room for growth, rapid iteration, and many opportunities, but it also requires you to have the ability to quickly polish and experience the ultimate.
2. New energy vehicles go overseas
This direction has continued to heat up in the past two years. The focus is not only on cars, but also on intelligent cockpit systems, intelligent driving assistance, overseas after-sales and ecological tools around smart cars going overseas. If you have a background in hardware, in-vehicle systems, IoT products, or are good at ToB products and multi-system collaboration, this is a new blue ocean that is expanding.
3. Chinese brands/advantageous products go overseas
Including cross-border e-commerce, independent stations, localized logistics and distribution, etc. Many brands have shifted from simple distribution to brand building + local operation + supply chain collaboration, and there is a great demand for talents who understand products.
In particular, many companies have some “physical overseas” positions: for example, to be responsible for the food delivery business in Brazil, the express delivery business in the Middle East, and assist in building warehousing facilities overseas. These positions generally have higher salaries, because in addition to the basic salary, there will be good subsidies and additional benefits. For example, “2W + 2W subsidy + 1W stationed benefits”, or “1.5W + 1W + overseas rental + 0.5W other benefits” and other combinations are not uncommon. If you are single and have no worries, you just want to make money, and you also want to go out and have some ideas, then these positions are still good opportunities.
Second, steadily and steadily, there is a direction of phased growth
If the direction of the new trend is more like a great voyage driven by technology and globalization, then the directions we will talk about next are more down-to-earth and easier to “see the results”. They may not be hot search keywords, but they often provide solid returns in reality.
1. New retail / e-commerce / O2O formats: cyclical opportunities close to life
The essence of this direction is that it is related to people’s food and clothing, and someone is always paying for it. Although it is often affected by consumer sentiment, demographics, and economic cycles, it also has a unique “phased outbreak” characteristic.
For example, community group buying in the early years, later discount snack chains, membership-based supermarkets, and instant retail, each wave has driven a group of product people to leap. From online to offline, from heavy operations to heavy commodities, behind every direction fine-tuning is a collaborative optimization between products and supply chains, operation systems, and membership systems.
For product people, these opportunities often happen quickly, but as long as you join and lay the foundation at the right time, a single right choice may allow you to make the leap from a “miscellaneous” product to a “mid-to-high-end core product” in a year or two.
2. Supply chain and fulfillment system: structural demand, long-term value
The supply chain is the underlying system that you don’t usually talk about but rely on every day. From warehousing, picking, and transportation, to fulfillment, after-sales, inventory optimization, and multi-channel distribution…… It permeates every e-commerce chain, every supermarket system, and every manufacturing enterprise’s daily operations.
It is not as conspicuous as some directions, but its value lies in the fact that the demand is rigid and complex, and it is not easy to be monopolized by one or two companies.
In other words, as long as people still need to eat, shop, and ship, the product positions in the supply chain will always exist. You can serve large supermarkets or be a middle platform platform; It can be biased towards scheduling algorithms or focus on the fulfillment experience. This stability and breadth make “supply chain product manager” a career position with considerable long-term value.
3. Industrial Internet Upgrade: The “Slow Variable Dividend” Behind Intelligent Manufacturing
Finally, I would like to talk about a direction that seems “very slow”, but is essentially “very stable”: the industrial Internet.
China’s positioning as a “manufacturing power” has been very clear, but in the field of informatization and intelligence, many factories, production systems, and upstream and downstream collaboration processes are still in their infancy. Most small and medium-sized enterprises still rely on Excel sheets, manual statistics, and telephone communication to solve problems.
But the trend is changing. Whether it is national policies, industry competition, or customer efficiency improvement needs, they are forcing these enterprises to carry out digital transformation.
At this time, you will find that as long as you can understand the essence of the business flow, information flow, and capital flow of an industry, you will have the opportunity to design a reasonable system structure for it and improve its efficiency. These opportunities don’t appear on the homepage of job boards every day, but when you are truly involved in an industry, the rewards it gives you are depth, barriers and long-term development space.
3. The direction of development is silently maintained: it is not an outlet, but it is also very good
In addition to those popular tracks that “either break out or be eliminated”, there are also some directions that may not be so eye-catching and are not often mentioned, but in fact, in the current environment, it is precisely the main position for many product people to “survive”.
These fields do not have their own aura like AI and going overseas, nor do they have particularly large financing, launch, and explosive models, but they are stable, pragmatic and certain. To sum it up in one sentence: not an outlet, but it also lives very well, even for a long time.
Some low-key C-end products: not hot, but not bad either
There are actually many such C-end products around us, such as efficiency tools, niche entertainment apps, light social products, and some mini game platforms – they are not popular and top-notch, but they have their own fixed user base, can make stable money, and can continue to iterate. Maybe the data is not exaggerated, but the products and teams are not coerced by capital to soar and fall, but grow slowly at their own pace.
Many friends who make this kind of product told me: “There is no outlet, but our product has been stable and profitable for several years, the team is not big, there is a lot of work, and life is okay.” Although it sounds bland, it is actually a rare ability to maintain such a state in the current environment.
Some pragmatic B-side products: not cool, but useful
There are also some students who do B-end products, they may be doing financial and tax compliance, invoice processing, tax declaration, reimbursement system, contract management, approval flow engine, SaaS platform, etc., no one will say “wow”, but think about it: these products are actually the key links that support the normal operation of enterprises.
They are not so sexy and not easy to grow significantly, but they are not easy to replace or cut down. The company may not add headcount every day, but the project is always being done, the team is always running, and as a product manager, you always have something to do, a goal, and a rhythm. This stability is an advantage in itself.
Especially in a slow-paced year like this year, being able to have a relatively stable and predictable position also means that you can more calmly accumulate business understanding, thinking ability and product judgment.
Written at the end
2025 will not be an “easy year”, but with each cycle downturn, there will always be new structural opportunities to grow again. As product people, our role is not to follow the trend, but to remain sensitive to real needs, to judge solutions, and to be responsible for our own path.
If you are thinking about the direction of your next job now, or just want to move from a project-based product to a long-term development path, I would like to say: you don’t need to “chase the hottest”, but you have to “choose the most suitable”.
Don’t rush to jump into AI, don’t rush to run to the sea with your friends, and don’t hastily turn to the B-end just because “everyone doesn’t do the C-end anymore”. Come back to yourself and ask yourself these questions: What type of product do I excel at? Do I understand the user better, or do I understand the process better? What kind of work rhythm can I accept? Is it high-speed trial and error, or is it steady progress? Do I have any kind of needs that I am willing to walk with for a long time?
We all want to stand on the outlet, but we must also admit that sometimes it is more important not to be blown away by the wind.
