Udacity AI Product Manager Review: Is It Worth It?

Are you interested in learning how to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) for building better products? Do you want to know how to define, validate, and prioritize AI opportunities, and communicate them effectively to stakeholders? If yes, then you might have come across Udacity’s AI Product Manager Nanodegree, a three-month online course that promises to teach you the essential skills and tools for becoming a successful AI product manager. But is it worth it? In this Review, we will take a closer look at the course content, projects, instructors, and outcomes of the Nanodegree, and help you decide if it is the right choice for you.

What is Udacity’s AI Product Manager Nanodegree?

Udacity’s AI Product Manager Nanodegree is an online course that aims to teach you how to create a data set, train a model, and evaluate its business impact. The course covers topics such as:

• How to identify AI opportunities and assess their feasibility and value
• How to design data labeling jobs and ensure data quality
• How to use platforms like Google AutoML and Figure Eight to train and evaluate machine learning models
• How to measure the performance and impact of AI products
• How to communicate AI concepts and results to technical and non-technical audiences

The course consists of four chapters and three projects, which are:

• Project 1: Create a Medical Image Annotation Job
• Project 2: Build a Model using Google AutoML
• Project 3: Create an AI Product Business Proposal

The course is designed for product managers, business analysts, entrepreneurs, or anyone who wants to learn how to apply AI to solve real-world problems. The course does not require any prior coding or machine learning experience, but it does assume some basic knowledge of product management and data analysis.

Who are the instructors?

The course is taught by four instructors who are experts in the field of AI product management. They are:

• Alex Holub: Co-founder and CEO of Vidora, an AI platform that enables businesses to build and optimize machine learning pipelines.
• Daudelin: Senior Product Manager at Figure Eight, a data annotation platform that provides high-quality training data for machine learning models.
• Robert Lacok: Lead AI Product Manager at Google Cloud AI Platform, where he works on building tools and services that enable developers and enterprises to create and deploy AI solutions.
• Ankur Taly: Head of Data Science at Fiddler Labs, an explainable AI platform that helps businesses monitor, analyze, and improve their AI models.

The instructors provide video lectures, quizzes, exercises, and feedback throughout the course. They also share their insights and best practices from their own experience in working with AI products.

What are the projects?

The projects are the core of the Nanodegree, as they allow you to apply what you learn in the course to real-world scenarios. The projects are designed to simulate the end-to-end process of creating an AI product, from defining the problem and collecting the data, to training the model and evaluating its impact. The projects are:

Project 1: Create a Medical Image Annotation Job

In this project, you will design a data labeling job for a medical image dataset. You will use Appen’s platform to create instructions, examples, and test questions for human annotators who will label chest x-ray images as healthy or pneumonia. You will also write a project proposal that explains the business goal, data source, data quality strategy, and expected outcome of the project.

Project 2: Build a Model using Google AutoML

In this project, you will use Google AutoML Vision to train a machine learning model that can classify images of flowers. You will upload your own dataset of flower images, select the model type and settings, and monitor the training process. You will also evaluate the model’s accuracy, precision, recall, and confusion matrix using Google AutoML’s dashboard.

Project 3: Create an AI Product Business Proposal

In this project, you will create a business proposal for an AI product that can help with the COVID-19 pandemic. You will define the problem statement, target market, value proposition, user journey, technical feasibility, ethical considerations, and success metrics of your product. You will also create a mockup or prototype of your product using tools like Balsamiq or Figma.

What are the outcomes?

According to Udacity’s website1, graduates of the Nanodegree have reported positive outcomes such as:

• Landing new jobs or promotions as AI product managers or related roles
• Launching new products or features using AI
• Improving their existing products or processes with AI
• Gaining more confidence and credibility in working with AI

Some examples of successful graduates are:

• Fabian Kutschera, who used his learnings from the Nanodegree to launch an AI-powered app that helps people find their perfect wine2
• Erkan Hatipoglu, who applied his skills from the Nanodegree to improve his existing product, a chatbot that helps students prepare for exams3
• Nidhi Jain, who leveraged her knowledge from the Nanodegree to land a job as a Senior Product Manager at Microsoft, where she works on AI solutions for healthcare

Is it worth it?

The answer to this question depends on your goals, background, and expectations. Udacity’s AI Product Manager Nanodegree is a great course for anyone who wants to learn the fundamentals of AI product management and gain hands-on experience with real-world projects. The course is well-structured, engaging, and practical, and the instructors are knowledgeable and helpful. The course also provides access to valuable resources and tools, such as Appen, Google AutoML, and Udacity’s career services.

However, the course is not a magic bullet that will make you an expert in AI product management overnight. The course is relatively short and introductory, and it does not cover some advanced topics such as natural language processing, computer vision, or deep learning. The course also does not guarantee any job placement or certification, and it requires a significant amount of time and effort to complete.

Therefore, if you are looking for a comprehensive and in-depth course on AI product management, or if you are expecting a quick and easy way to land your dream job in AI, then this course might not be the best fit for you. However, if you are looking for a solid foundation and a practical introduction to AI product management, or if you are curious about how AI can enhance your existing products or create new ones, then this course might be exactly what you need.

Conclusion

Udacity’s AI Product Manager Nanodegree is a unique and valuable course that teaches you how to create a data set, train a model, and evaluate its business impact. The course covers topics such as identifying AI opportunities, designing data labeling jobs, using platforms like Google AutoML and Figure Eight, measuring the performance and impact of AI products, and communicating AI concepts and results. The course also includes three projects that allow you to apply what you learn to real-world scenarios. The course is taught by four instructors who are experts in the field of AI product management, and who provide video lectures, quizzes, exercises, and feedback throughout the course. The course also provides access to valuable resources and tools, such as Appen, Google AutoML, and Udacity’s career services.

The course is suitable for product managers, business analysts, entrepreneurs, or anyone who wants to learn how to apply AI to solve real-world problems. The course does not require any prior coding or machine learning experience, but it does assume some basic knowledge of product management and data analysis.

The course is not a comprehensive or in-depth course on AI product management, nor is it a guarantee of any job placement or certification. The course is relatively short and introductory, and it does not cover some advanced topics such as natural language processing, computer vision, or deep learning. The course also requires a significant amount of time and effort to complete.

If you are interested in learning more about Udacity’s AI Product Manager Nanodegree, you can visit their website1 or read some reviews from graduates23 . You can also enroll in the course for $399 per month or $1077 for three months (with a 10% discount). Udacity also offers a free trial for seven days.

We hope this Review has helped you decide if Udacity’s AI Product Manager Nanodegree is worth it for you. If you have any questions or feedback about the course or this Review article, please feel free to leave a comment below. Thank you for reading!