Product owners and project managers have the soft skills to convince the company that they aren't a drain on its resources regardless of what they actually are.

Yeah, but can they out-perform LLMs at soft skills? LLMs are really good sucking up, and telling people what they want to hear.

I've worked for a company which turned from startup to this. Product owners had no clue what they own. And no brain capacity to suggest something useful. They were just taken from the street at best, most likely had relatives' helping hands. In a couple of years company probably tripled manages headcount. It didn't help.