title: "Okay, Maybe There's Something to This 'AI for PRDs' Thing?" date: "2024-05-01" excerpt: "Look, I was skeptical. Another tool promising to magically solve the pain of product requirements documents? But I gave it a shot, and frankly, it surprised me."
Okay, Maybe There's Something to This 'AI for PRDs' Thing?
Writing a product requirements document. Just saying the words can elicit a groan from anyone who's spent significant time in the product world. It's foundational, absolutely critical for clear communication and a successful build, but let's be honest – it can be a slog. Gathering all the details, ensuring accuracy, structuring it logically, anticipating edge cases... it's a beast. And then there's the constant pressure to do it fast.
So, when I kept hearing whispers about AI tools claiming to help with this exact problem, my default setting was cynical. "Yeah, right," I thought. "Like a machine can capture the nuance and strategic thinking that goes into a good PRD." My mind immediately went to robotic, templated outputs – the very opposite of what you need when you're trying to clearly articulate a complex feature or product vision.
But curiosity, or perhaps just plain exhaustion from staring at a blank document, eventually won out. I poked around a bit and stumbled onto this thing: https://www.textimagecraft.com/zh/prd-analyzer (Okay, the URL has some Chinese, but the tool itself is relevant to English speaking PMs). The claim is straightforward: help product managers generate efficient and accurate PRD content quickly. Standard marketing speak, sure. But I decided to give it a spin with a tricky feature I was trying to spec out.
The interesting part wasn't that it spat out a complete, ready-to-go PRD in one go – let's be realistic, that's not how complex documentation works. The value, I found, was in the kickstart. You feed it your initial thoughts, maybe some user stories or core requirements you've already jotted down, and it helps structure and expand upon them. It prompts you in ways that make you think about sections you might have glossed over in your rush. Things like detailed functional specifications or non-functional requirements that sometimes get added as afterthoughts.
What makes it stand out from just a static template? It felt more dynamic. It wasn't just filling in blanks; it was analyzing the intent behind the input and suggesting relevant sections or angles. For someone trying to figure out how to write a good PRD faster without sacrificing completeness, this felt like a genuine aid, not a replacement. It's like having an intern who's surprisingly good at organizing information and reminding you of best practices, freeing you up to focus on the strategic why and the intricate what.
Frankly, it’s less about magical generation and more about intelligent assistance. It helps streamline the product documentation process significantly. If you're drowning in drafting, or if you're newer to the role and asking yourself "what needs to go into this PRD?", tools like this can provide a solid framework and prompt you to consider all the necessary pieces. It’s particularly helpful for getting those initial drafts done, saving you hours that you can then spend refining, collaborating, and getting stakeholder buy-in – the parts that actually require that human touch.
It won't write your entire strategy for you, and you still absolutely need to review and heavily edit the output to ensure it matches your specific product, team, and context. But as a way to jumpstart the writing process, ensure you haven't missed major sections, and get a structured document drafted rapidly, it's genuinely effective. It might just be one of those practical tools for product managers that actually lives up to the hype, at least for getting the ball rolling and improving that dreaded initial draft quality. Worth a look if you're tired of starting from scratch every time.