AI and the Art of Project Management

Generative AI is everywhere these days—and that includes project management.

According to the 2024 PMI Generative AI in Project Management Survey, 20 percent of project professionals report using GenAI in over half of their recent projects for managing project work. Another 25 percent are beginning to explore GenAI project management tools.

In another PMI survey, 91 percent of respondents said GenAI will have at least a moderate impact on the profession, and 58 percent said it will have a “major” or “transformative” impact.

There’s no doubt that AI will aid project management—but as a new tool in our belt, not to replace project managers.

However, GenAI can make good project managers even better by giving them more bandwidth to actually manage. It frees them up to do the human stuff: leading the team, making the big decisions, and strategizing.

In other words, it helps PMs make sure things get done and done right—not just on time and on budget but in a way that truly achieves the project’s goals.

In this white paper, we take a look at the promise of AI in project management. We examine AI’s use cases, its strengths and weaknesses, and current AI-enhanced tools.  

The Promise of AI

Let’s begin by talking about the elephant in the room: Will GenAI eventually replace the project manager’s role? 

The short answer is no. GenAI will not replace project managers. Project management is an art form, and what makes a good project manager can’t just be automated.

The real promise of AI lies in significantly enhancing the PM role. GenAI can empower project managers by automating the repetitive and time-consuming aspects of their work, freeing them to spend more time on the human aspects—the stuff that can’t be automated.

GenAI can help with many project management functions but it will always need human oversight to make sure it’s getting things right, especially for complex tasks.

Use Cases for AI in Project Management

Respondents to the PMI survey reported that data analysis, planning, document summarization, and content reviewing are the most common uses of GenAI tools. However, these aren’t the only use cases.

GenAI performs some tasks better than others. For example, it can easily perform simple tasks with few variables. For example, it can summarize meeting notes and lessons learned and generate reports without needing much human oversight.

When tasks involve business context perspectives or specific project management knowledge, AI tools need more human intervention to complete the task.

Where the task falls on that complexity spectrum determines if GenAI can automate the task, assist the PM do the task faster, or augment the PM’s ability to do more complex and strategic tasks.

Automate

Simple tasks that require little human intervention can be automated by GenAI. It can generate reports, analyze documents with several types of data, summarize meeting notes and lessons learned, and perform calculations.

To automate tasks that usually don’t need assessment and verification by experienced project managers, PMs can create standard prompts that can be used across projects and by other team members.

Use Cases

• Meeting notes summary
• Report generation
• Lessons learned summary

Assist

Project managers can use GenAI tools to supplement their analysis, create first drafts for review by experts, and build the expected output for a particular task. The AI’s results should be analyzed by an experienced PM for accuracy and will likely need some refinement.

AI can assist with tasks such as creating a first draft of a cost-benefit analysis, performing data analysis on a scope change recommendation, creating scheduling plans, and performing a risk analysis.

Use Cases

• Cost and schedule information
• Large dataset analysis
• Cost-benefit analysis
• Risk analysis

Augment

PMs can use GenAI to enhance their existing capabilities and develop new ones. AI tools help project managers perform more complex and strategic tasks specific to the business or function, such as creating outstanding business cases for projects and supporting complex decision-making with many interdependencies and variables.

The PM still guides and does most of the work, but they can use GenAI to gain insights and perform specific tasks.

Use Cases

• Project decision making
• Project business case creation

AI-powered PM Tools

There is a plethora of AI tools project managers can take advantage of, and it seems like more hit the market every day. The Rundown AI daily newsletter is a good way to keep up on the latest AI tools.

Hubspot’s Zoe Ashbridge reviewed ten popular AI-powered project management tools, evaluating their features, pricing, and suitability for different needs. Ashbridge judged these tools by how well they replicated human action, their AI functionality, and their pricing. Here’s a summary of her findings.

Asana

Asana bills itself at the “#1 AI work management platform.” Whether or not that’s true, it is intuitive and user-friendly, with a robust feature set that allows users to manage projects and tasks efficiently. It is ideal for long-term projects where team members rotate in and out.

Favorite Features

• Workflow: Automates repetitive tasks, absorbs much of the admin work, and provides AI-driven insights
• Asana Intelligence: Helps with planning, summaries, and content edits. Highlights at-risk projects that need human intervention.

ClickUp

ClickUp is a popular, cheaper alternative to Asana that provides a slightly better user experience. In addition to its affordability, ClickUp has a customizable setup and powerful AI features for content creation and task management.

Favorite Features

• Content Creation: The ClickUp AI can help with “whatever you’re writing.”
• Summarizing Content: Summarizes content such as meeting notes or long descriptions, turning them into short briefs for the team.
• Translation: ClickUp’s AI has a translation feature, which is useful for international teams.

Monday

Monday is a full-featured project management tool that allows users to manage their sales CRM and, for Enterprise plans, they can access reports and work performance insights.

Favorite Features

• Task List Generation: Users can ask the AI to list recommended steps for a project.
• Generative AI: Generative AI tools are available for writing, summarizing, creating emails, and more.

Basecamp

Basecamp is a pricy option for smaller teams, but for teams with more than 60 people, it’s the most affordable option, beating even low-cost options like ClickUp.

Favorite Feature

• Project completion: Basecamp’s AI enables users to gauge a project’s performance easily. It analyzes project data and alerts users when projects are at risk. This feature enables project managers to focus on solving issues and overcoming project obstacles instead of being bogged down in manual work.

Trello

Trello is an easy-to-use PM tool for teams with only a few projects. It features an intuitive interface, rapid onboarding, and a free tier. While not best for use at scale, it serves small teams and project well.

Favorite Feature

• Strategy AI: Tello’s AI can be used to control who sees project details and mark priority tasks.

Motion

Motion promises that it’s AI can make users “137% more productive.” Its AI-powered scheduling, calendar synchronization, and decision-making support features help optimize time management.

Favorite Features

• AI Meeting Scheduling: After giving it preferred meeting times, Motion’s Meeting Assist AI will prioritize a user’s desired meeting times and availability. People wanting to schedule a meeting with the user will only be offered those times and dates.
• Predictive AI: Motion’s AI considers projects, tasks, deadlines, start dates, priorities, and working hours, and then schedules tasks based on urgency and availability.
• Calendar Synchronization: Motion synchs Outlook and Google calendars in one central place.

Height

Height is the newest contender in the ring. While it’s too new for inclusion in the Hubspot article, Height offers a wealth of AI-powered automation features for PMs.

Favorite Features

• Integrated Chat: Height allows real-time communication within the project management interface and seamlessly integrates with Slack.
• Customizable Workflows: Height lets PMs tailor workflows to specific team needs.
• Real-Time Insights: Height gives PMs real-time views into task progress, helping teams adapt quickly to change.

Ancillary Tools

While not project management platforms in themselves, some AI tools serve well to support project managers. Ashbridge recommends OneCal for its ability to seamlessly sync multiple calendars; Notion for creating knowledge bases, storing documents, and organizing information; Slack for communicating with teams; and Loom for creating training materials, explainer videos, and meeting recordings.

At its Zoomtopia 2024 event in October, Zoom announced a host of new AI tools for its platform that could benefit PMs. Possibly the most useful PM tool is Zoom Tasks, a new AI-powered feature to help detect, recommend, and complete tasks based on conversations across the Zoom Workplace.

Custom AI Tools

Sometimes, the best AI tool is the one that’s been tailored to a business’s specific workflows, projects, and needs. Take Taazaa, for example. We’re a custom software development company with clients in a wide range of industries. On top of that, we offer a wide range of services.

As a result, we found we needed something more tailored than what off-the-shelf solutions like Asana or Basecamp offer. So, we started building our own AI-powered project management tool. Our goal is to create a solution that accelerates our software development lifecycle without negatively impacting the high quality our clients expect from us.

How Will AI Impact Project Management?

There seems to be a lot of anxious talk about AI taking our jobs. However, as Larry English noted in his article for Forbes, “When Agile arrived on the scene, some people foretold the death of project management. What ended up happening, however, was project management became nimbler.”

As of right now, a similar situation is playing out with AI. Instead of taking PM jobs, AI tools are helping project managers be better at their jobs. AI can automate many project management tasks, but it can’t replace the human element of project managers.

It just gives PMs more freedom to actually manage—to lead the team, make the big decisions, find creative solutions, and strategize.

Using AI for project management is like using any other tool. If the process is good, the right tool will improve it—delivering more insights into business drivers, predicting obstacles and delays, and highlighting where PMs can save time and effort.