By Lenny Rachitsky · lennysnewsletter.com · @lennysan on X · YouTube · LinkedIn
Lenny Rachitsky and survey partner Noam Segal report results from a survey of 6,500+ tech professionals on the tools they use, love, and want to replace. The clearest shift since 2020 and 2022 is AI assistants, led by ChatGPT, which 90% of respondents use regularly. AI-native coding tools such as Cursor are also spreading quickly. Modern, well-crafted products like Linear, Notion, and Figma are gaining on incumbents bundled into large suites like Jira, Teams, and Outlook. The article argues that user experience now outweighs feature count in tool choice, and that teams mix multiple tools within a single category. For product leaders, the piece is a snapshot of how the modern PM stack is changing and where switching pressure is building.
01Key takeaways
- Expect AI assistants to be a baseline part of the PM toolkit, and expect teams to combine several assistants based on strengths.
- Watch for wedge-based challengers in categories dominated by bundled incumbents, since poor user experience creates switching opportunities.
- Prioritize user experience and workflow fit over feature count when evaluating internal or customer-facing tools.
- Don't assume popularity equals love; check how often a tool also appears on a least-valued list.
- Choose specialized tools for specific needs rather than forcing one general tool across every job, especially in research and analytics.
02Key sections
- Survey scope and respondents
- The survey covered 13 tool categories and asked what people use, love, dislike, and would switch. Most respondents work in product, and about 70% are at companies under 1,000 employees, making them early adopters.
- Headline shifts
- AI assistants have become near-universal, and AI-native IDEs are emerging fast. Slack remains dominant, while Jira is widely used yet frequently named as a tool people want to leave.
- Category-by-category breakdown
- The article walks through communication, project management, presentations, docs, design, whiteboards, CRM, support, user research, analytics, and email. Each category shows either an incumbent holding on or a challenger gaining ground.
- Value versus switching
- The authors built an adjusted most-valued metric to avoid rewarding popularity alone, and they found tools like Slack appearing on both the most-valued and least-valued lists. The 'please let us switch' list featured Jira, Confluence, and Microsoft Teams.
- Meta takeaways
- The conclusions are that bundling creates lock-in but only goes so far, well-crafted products are disrupting incumbents, and people mix and match competing tools for specific jobs.
03From the post
“1. A guide to AI prototyping for product managers 2. Introducing Core 4: The best way to measure and improve your product velocity 3. Top angel investors in the U.S. For more: Lennybot | Podcast | Swag | Hire your next product leader | My favorite courses I’ve always been fascinated by what tools people choose to use in their work. What started as a casual survey of PMs on Twitter has grown into something much bigger. Today, with insights from over 6,500 of you (thank you! 🙏), I’m excited to share the results of my first-ever large-scale “What’s in your stack?” survey. The results are both surprising and telling. We’re seeing AI already transforming people’s jobs, watching the methodical disruption of incumbents by beautifully crafted alternatives, and witnessing a few seismic shifts in how teams collaborate. To help me design and run this survey, I pulled in my former colleague Noam Segal, who’s been a UXR leader at Meta, X, Intercom, Airbnb, Wealthfront, Upwork, and, most recently, Zapier. I’m delighted to collaborate with him on this and, hopefully, many…”
04Frameworks mentioned
Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.