Is AI a Friend or Foe in Project Management?

As artificial intelligence continues to reshape industries worldwide, its impact on project management is a hot topic among professionals. From task automation to advanced data analysis, AI offers tools to transform project managers’ operations, making their roles more strategic and less administrative. But with these changes come concerns: will AI enhance project management, or might it take over essential functions?

In this Q&A, Susan Weese, who leads CSU Global’s project, operations, and management program, shares her insights into AI’s role in project management—now and in the future. Through real-life applications and a closer look at emerging trends, she explores how AI might become a project manager’s best asset rather than a threat.

How should project managers feel about using AI in their jobs? Is it more of a tool to enhance productivity, or is there a risk of AI replacing some aspects of the role or otherwise causing issues in companies?

Project managers and their organizations should be welcoming Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a new member of the project team. AI is a friend to project managers, not a foe. AI can be a capable and contributing member of the team, supporting and enhancing problem-solving and decision-making across the project life cycle. In my experience, I have found that AI brings opportunities to project management by improving and providing support to me in the project manager’s role. AI increases my efficiency and my productivity as a project manager, saving me both time and effort.

Let’s use taking project meeting minutes as an example. With the AI capabilities and technologies that are out there, my meeting minutes can be done, checked, and circulated by AI. Action items in those minutes can be linked to action item bots to track people’s progress in completing their assigned actions. The time and effort savings can be potentially significant for the project manager here. Or imagine that you are a project manager who was offered a free project assistant resource, someone who would organize meeting minutes, set up the meeting agenda, take the minutes, track the project budget, track the project plan, alert you when something isn’t going as planned, and tell you what needs to be done next. Would you say no to this project resource? I would say yes and then ask for two of them.

Integrating AI capabilities into managing projects is more straightforward than many people think. AI can replace as well as support many aspects of being a project manager, and many of the targeted tasks to assign to your AI project team member are administrative in nature. Having AI pick up the administrative activities on a project allows project managers the time to focus on the more important elements of their jobs – aligning with business strategy, managing stakeholders, analyzing project performance, making decisions, applying interpersonal skills, and building relationships.

I believe that using AI makes for a better project manager. The innovations and capabilities of AI are helping today’s project managers build a strategic digital advantage for their organizations in an increasingly competitive business world. However, there are many challenges present in this transition to AI capabilities as part of the project manager’s toolkit. Many project managers perceive AI as an agent of job loss and career derailment versus an agent of opportunity and the possibility of career growth.

Project managers must understand the basics of AI, cloud computing, and big data and how these capabilities have paved the way for using AI in project management.

What AI tools are most useful to project managers right now? Are there specific applications or platforms you’d recommend for someone starting to integrate AI into their work?

Project managers will find weak AI capabilities in most project management tools these days. AI-enabled project management tools, such as JIRA, Trello, and Wrike, perform specialized tasks within well-defined areas of the project management discipline. In my experience, AI can successfully monitor program and project progress, manage documentation, plan activity schedules, predict budget progress, forecast schedule progress, and manage my project resources. AI is also beginning to be used more strategically to improve program and project definition, selection, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation in many organizations. Even using widely available chatbots can be helpful, although the information received must be verified and vetted prior to use.

Project managers may find themselves using AI capabilities in their project management tools as well as managing AI projects. Projects I have recently been involved with that implement an aspect of AI for the business side of the house include using Natural Language Processing (NLP) to collect and analyze competitive business intelligence and applying Machine Learning (ML) to evaluate project performance using an organization’s historical project data.

Note to aspiring, new, and experienced project managers: strongly consider becoming an active member of the Project Management Institute (PMI). PMI’s resources for aspiring, new, or experienced project managers are excellent for folks who are working in the wilds of project management. One new resource now offered to PMI members is PMI Infinity, an AI-driven project management resource supporting project managers in their daily work activities. The tool is an ever-growing knowledge base of expert-vetted project management knowledge and best practices. The AI tool has been trained using PMI proprietary content. Project managers can query PMI Infinity using a range of prompts, from generating project templates and processes to simply answering straightforward project management questions. This AI tool is worth a test drive for students and practitioners alike. I really like the prompt library, tutorials, and guided experiences available to users of this tool.

How do you see AI shaping the future of project management in the next 5-10 years? What trends should aspiring project managers be aware of to stay ahead in the field?

AI continues to redefine project management roles and capabilities within the project management discipline. Today’s project managers should continue to leverage AI for planning, reporting, recording, and forecasting within their projects. AI assistance and participation in project planning, control, and delivery activities allow the project manager to step up and focus on the strategic and people-focused aspects of their jobs.

Project managers should recognize that AI in and of itself is not a system; AI is implemented within a system, such as a project management tool. AI provides project managers and their organizations a unique opportunity to manage and leverage project, program, and technical knowledge within and between projects and other initiatives. AI technologies learn from existing project management data and knowledge, performing tasks that previously needed a project manager’s involvement. Using AI for project knowledge management requires past, present, and future project data from the current systems in use today, such as lessons learned and saved cost, schedule, and scope archives from previous projects.

Aspiring project managers are facing a job market with many opportunities for career growth. Technology, such as AI, underpins and assists with many activities project managers are expected to perform. Being familiar with technology and proficient in using one or more project management tools sets a strong baseline in the workplace. New project managers should recognize that AI capabilities in their project management tools are there to collect, manipulate, and show them project data that supports their work activities. The AI capabilities are not intended to be the project manager and to make project decisions; they are there as a member of the project team to advise and assist the project manager in decision-making.

How does Colorado State University Global incorporate AI into its project management programs? What skills can students earning certificates or degrees in project management expect to have? 

CSU Global has several strategic initiatives this academic year targeting the use of AI into the current courses being offered this academic year, and that includes the project management courses.

CSU Global’s project management courses now feature strategic AI integrations—empowering students to test-drive AI tools, analyze their impact, and gain hands-on experience with real-world simulation technology.

We are increasing the use of AI in discussion boards and assignments as well as incorporating many real-world simulation tools that also have a bit of weak AI “under the covers.”  Students are encouraged to take the AI capabilities in the many project management tools they use during their coursework for a test drive and to analyze the value of the tool’s AI capabilities and results. Many of our project management faculty are encouraging project management students to use AI chatbots, such as CSU Global’s data-protected version of Google Gemini, to suggest how to build project deliverables and processes. Faculty are also leveraging AI to walk students through the “doing the math” side of project management budgeting, scheduling, and forecasting. CSU Global students can expect to see these things and more moving forward in our agile and traditional project management programs and courses.

Can AI improve stakeholder communication and engagement? If so, what tools or methods do you recommend for project managers aiming to keep stakeholders informed and satisfied?

As an aside, did you know that John McCarthy coined the term “Artificial Intelligence (AI)” in 1956, defining a new field of computer science, which were computer applications with human cognitive capabilities? For project managers, AI encompasses interactive, self-learning, and autonomous technologies that acquire and manage knowledge, assist with decision-making, and predict future outcomes based upon current information and pattern recognition. AI applies data analysis techniques to help project managers make data-driven decisions. Emerging AI technologies can help project managers to:

1. Organize project knowledge such as risk, schedule, cost, and resource data.

2. Move from experienced-based decision-making to data-driven decision-making.

3. Predict future project outcomes based on the patterns found in past performance data.

AI can take over many of the mundane and administrative tasks of project management, allowing project managers to focus more on the strategic and people-focused components of their role versus their routine daily tasks. According to PMI (2019c), 47% of project managers reported time savings when using AI to analyze and produce insights from large amounts of data. Elements of this more strategic and people-focused role include stakeholder management, communication, leadership, influence skills, a business strategy focus, mentoring, and coaching.

The project manager’s ability to adapt, manage, and integrate emerging tools and technologies into their role is crucial for their future career success. Integrating AI as a new project team member is a step forward in the digital evolution of project management and the ever-changing role of the project manager in a technology-driven world.

CSU Global is a top-ranked leader in project management education, holding the #1 spot for Top Online Bachelor’s Degrees in Project Management (Top Management Degrees) and #2 for Best Online Project Management Degree Programs of 2024 (Intelligent).

Susan Weese has 40 years of experience in project management and software engineering. She founded Rhyming Planet Inc. to help professionals achieve project goals and held leadership roles at RSA, MCI, and Logicon. Co-author of the CBAP/CCBA Certified Business Analysis Study Guide, her current research focuses on AI in project management.