Will AI Change the Need for Project Managers?

Globally, there are an estimated 16.5 million project managers. A forecast by PMI suggests another 25 million new project managers will be needed by 2030. That’s good news for all my project management students, but some organizations may adopt AI to address the challenge of hiring more project managers. 

Organizations are likely to use AI to expand the span of control of project managers in two ways.

1.    Add AI to manage specific processes independently and include a dynamic exception warning. This can allow a single project manager to manage many more projects at the same time.

2.    Allow AI to be the project manager for smaller, simple projects within specified constraints. This can be performed with an AI-based agent that completes the project independently, unless exceptions are identified that require attention.

AI is already capable of performing a growing range of project management activities. In addition to organizing meetings and preparing status reports, AI can assist with planning, scheduling, budgeting, risk identification, forecasting, resource allocation, and performance monitoring. Many project documents can be generated, reviewed, or validated by AI. These capabilities may reduce demand for some project coordination, scheduling, and support roles as an increasing number of project management activities are automated. The role of the project manager increasingly shifts toward oversight, exception management, organizational alignment, and ensuring that AI-supported decisions align with project objectives.

AI will not determine whether the demand for project managers rises or falls. Organizations will make that decision based on how they redesign project work. The future is likely to involve AI performing a growing share of project management activities, while project managers focus increasingly on leadership, judgment, stakeholder engagement, and accountability.