What 1,500 CPOs say about their future
The 2026 CPO Insights Report is here
Five years ago, we started surveying CPOs to define what it takes to lead product. Today, the answer keeps getting more interesting.
I’m thrilled to share the 2026 CPO Insights Report: From Builder to Investor: The New Product Mandate. It’s the biggest study we’ve ever done, with insights from 1,500+ Chief Product Officers across twelve industries and three continents. And for the first time, we expanded the dataset to include private companies with $1B–$10B in revenue. Because 96% of AI companies are private, and that’s where product innovation is happening right now.
The headline finding is that in 2026, the CPO is going on offense. AI has compressed product cycles from months to days, with traditional PMs down 30% (70% in SaaS) as the Product Builder takes over. The bottleneck has moved downstream to GTM and adoption, and 1 in 3 CPOs now own the M&A agenda, marking the rise of the Chief Product Investor.
This is the most consequential shift in product leadership in a decade. The leaders who understand it will run the next generation of companies, and the ones who don't will get left behind.
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