A PM I know once walked into a leadership meeting only to be blindsided by a question: “Did you see that Competitor X just launched a Jira integration? What’s our response?” She hadn’t. The news was buried in the competitor’s release notes, published two weeks earlier.

To be clear, the takeaway here is not that you should copy competitors or overly focus on what they're doing. But it sure does help to at least stay in the loop.

If you’ve ever been in that position, you know the pain. Tracking competitor updates is critical, but doing it well can feel impossible. Changelogs, newsletters, blog posts, press releases. It’s scattered everywhere. Even if you sign up for all of them, you’ll miss things or drown in noise.

It will sound like a cliché but this is one of those things where AI really excels i.e. summarizing text and extracting some relevant insights.

But why should you care about what your competitors are doing?

Stakeholders care deeply about what competitors are shipping. Sales wants to know how to counter new features. Marketing wants to position against them. Executives want reassurance that you’re not falling behind.

And as PMs, we need to know too. Not because we should chase every feature, but because competitor moves provide signals: shifts in strategy, bets on specific segments, or validation of ideas already on your backlog.

The Messy Reality Today

Most PMs track competitors the same way:

• Subscribe to newsletters and RSS feeds.

• Skim through release notes when you remember.

• Hope someone on the team forwards an announcement.

It’s inconsistent, reactive, and easy to miss things. Like that Jira integration.

AI actually does help (reliably for once)

Imagine if instead of juggling links and newsletters, you had a single feed that kept you updated automatically.

AI subscribes to competitor release notes, product blogs, and changelogs. It scans each update, summarizes the key changes, and highlights what’s relevant to your product. The digest shows up in Microsoft Teams or Slack, where your team already communicates.

So instead of reading three pages of bug fixes, you get a simple note: “Competitor X launched a Jira integration on Sept 1. Overlaps with planned Q4 feature.” No scrambling. No FOMO.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Some teams already use tools like this. A recent survey indicated that already 31% of PMs uses AI in some capacity for market and competitor research.

A PM I spoke to has AI summarize five competitors’ release notes weekly. The updates land in Teams every Monday morning. She skims the digest in five minutes and decides what, if anything, needs attention. Most weeks, it’s nothing urgent. But when a big launch hits, she’s the one telling stakeholders first, not the other way around.

That’s the difference. AI doesn’t make you chase competitors. It just makes sure you don’t miss important signals.

The Human Layer Still Matters

AI can tell you what competitors released. It can’t tell you how to react. That’s your call. Sometimes the right move is to accelerate a roadmap item. Other times, it’s to ignore the noise and stay the course. The insight matters less than the judgment.

Takeaways for Product Managers

• Don’t try to track everything manually. You’ll burn out.

• Use AI to aggregate competitor updates. Release notes, changelogs, blogs. One feed.

• Get summaries delivered where you already work. Teams, Slack, or email.

• Stay human-in-the-loop. Let AI handle the updates, you handle the strategy.

Competitor monitoring doesn’t have to mean endless tabs and forgotten newsletters. With AI pulling the updates and dropping them into your workflow, you’ll always know what’s happening. And you’ll have the headspace to decide what actually matters.