Build breakthrough products with Airtable ProductCentral

Today, we’re launching Airtable ProductCentral, the unified solution to managing your entire product development process.  

Aligned teams build breakthrough products. ProductCentral connects every stage of product development, unifying customer insights, product roadmaps, team resources, and strategic goals into one powerful hub. Leveraging best practices from today’s leading product organizations, ProductCentral applies AI to massive customer data sets to discover novel insights and connects to the entire enterprise technology stack, from JIRA to Snowflake. The result is an AI-infused, 360-degree management layer across all altitudes and stages of product development. 

In today's rapidly evolving competitive landscape, the ability to build and ship better products faster isn’t just about getting an edge—it's critical for survival.

The new era of product management

We’re living in the world Marc Andreessen predicted more than a decade ago. Software did, in fact, eat the world. Now we’re in the midst of another rapid transformation as companies prioritize digital products and experiences. According to McKinsey, the average lifespan of a company on the S&P 500 has shrunk to just 18 years, compared to 61 in the 1950s. 

Every company is becoming a digital product company in order to compete. Whether you’re a software company, a retailer, a financial institution, or a coffee brand—this battle will be won by the companies and brands that create winning digital experiences. 

Yet the key to digital product success isn't just about AI adoption or team size; simply expanding a product team or increasing output doesn't guarantee impact. In order to drive real progress, organizations need to allocate resources to initiatives that matter. This requires a robust system of record for a product organization—a clear view of what's working, what's not, and how resources align with strategic objectives. 

While the challenge may be clear, the solution is not. Traditional product software has failed, evidenced by the fact that the average product manager spends 66% of their time on administrative tasks. Existing point solutions are fragmented and narrow in scope, and their AI applications are unimaginative and inflexible. Too many product teams are drowning in manual tasks instead of focusing on customer impact and product vision.  

The need for a new solution is urgent. Today’s rapid transformation requires a robust system of record for product truth—one that delivers a clear, unified view of what's working, what's not, and how resources align with strategic objectives. This takes the form of an AI-powered central hub that translates product efforts into better, faster product development and, ultimately, profound business impact.  

Introducing Airtable ProductCentral: Run your product organization from every altitude

Unlike fragmented point solutions and narrow roadmapping tools, Airtable ProductCentral delivers a unified view of an organization’s product roadmap at every altitude and across every stage of product development, infused with AI at each step. 

Over the last 18 months, we partnered with leading Fortune 500 customers and innovative, fast-growth startups to design an opinionated, out-of-the-box version of Airtable that systematizes product development best practices. Major organizations like JetBlue and BlackRock already use Airtable to power their product development processes. BlackRock, for example, achieved 2X product velocity since implementing Airtable.

Companies can use ProductCentral to run product management from a central hub and immediately integrate AI in powerful and meaningful ways. Teams are empowered to accelerate all stages of the product development cycle—from the top-down vision and bottom-up execution, to internal product team cohesion and company-wide collaboration. 

"ProductCentral is more than a software solution; it elevates the entire category of product operations, a discipline that has become integral to every company as they aggressively prioritize building digital products and experiences," said Howie Liu, CEO and Co-founder of Airtable. "Our strong partnerships with leading companies across industries—from unicorns and AI pioneers to Fortune 500 giants—have given us a front row seat to the rising importance of this category. We've used years of experience powering product teams in every industry to build a fully-managed solution that will redefine how companies innovate and compete."

Turning AI-powered customer insights into breakthrough products

At the heart of ProductCentral lies game-changing AI-powered customer insights. The challenge in today's data-rich environment isn't gathering customer feedback, it's making sense of it all. 

Using the latest LLMs, ProductCentral revolutionizes this process, generating insights from thousands of data sources—including in-app feedback data, support tickets in Zendesk, and even Gong call transcripts—to surface the signals amidst the noise in a matter of seconds. AI then triages the feedback into salient themes and categories, and surfaces those insights to help guide the roadmap. ProductCentral goes further than analysis alone; it transforms volumes of customer feedback into valuable sources of product innovation.

For example, a retailer might receive the feedback that “Poor Clothing Fit” is the leading source of customer frustration, resulting in millions of dollars of returned products. Using AI, ProductCentral suggests investing in a virtual try-on feature to proactively address the issue and reduce the return rate. From there, it’s only a few short clicks to insert the idea into the existing product roadmap without ever needing to move to a different tool. 

This AI-driven approach not only accelerates ideation, but it ensures product development is in lockstep with customer demands, increasing the likelihood new products will resonate in the market. 

Unify product management end-to-end—yes, it's finally possible

ProductCentral revolutionizes product management by delivering a truly unified view across every stage and level of a product organization. It gives leaders a single, centralized platform, eliminating the silos that plague most product development processes. 

Additionally, all cross-functional stakeholders—from product managers and developers to marketing teams and customer support—have real-time visibility into the product pipeline, including what's in development, and when features are slated for release. ProductCentral aligns efforts, reduces redundancies, and ultimately accelerates the path from ideation to successful product launch.

Most importantly, it promotes a new level of transparency and accountability across the entire product development cycle. 

One example of this transformation in action is JetBlue’s work to redesign its product development process. Without a single source of truth, the company struggled with rapidly changing strategic initiatives, rigid tooling, and disconnected data. As a company managing a complex product landscape—with touch points across e-commerce, loyalty, mobile, kiosks, in-flight experiences, and crew members—these issues hampered JetBlue's ability to innovate and adapt in a dynamic market.

JetBlue implemented Airtable for centralized roadmap management and to revolutionize its product operations. Reporting processes that once took weeks are completed today in 30 minutes. Ultimately, JetBlue significantly improved its ability to adapt, innovate, and compete in an ever-changing market.

Translate product investments into business impact

Additionally, ProductCentral empowers organizations to strategically align talent with the highest-impact initiatives. Today’s competitive landscape requires continuously optimized resource allocation based on evolving priorities and market opportunities. 

With ProductCentral, executives get a comprehensive view across all product groups and lines of business, enabling them to visualize and adjust team investment levels dynamically to meet company objectives. This bird's-eye perspective allows leaders to track and understand headcount resource allocation over time, identifying trends, bottlenecks, and areas of opportunity. 

By providing this unmatched level of insight and flexibility, ProductCentral ensures your most valuable asset—your people—are always focused on the right bets, maximizing return on investment, and driving business outcomes.

The AI-powered, end-to-end product management solution

ProductCentral is built to give teams the tools, insight, and alignment they need to innovate, adapt, and thrive in this new era of AI-driven product management. It creates the first fully centralized product development cycle, infused with AI at each step. From customer insights, to strategic planning and roadmapping, to detailed execution management and go-to-market initiatives—ProductCentral powers actionable product breakthroughs and meaningful business results. 

Airtable ProductCentral is available today. To learn more about Airtable ProductCentral and schedule a demo, visit www.airtable.com/solutions/product.