Will the widespread adoption of prompt engineering commoditize project management skills, or can it help PMs differentiate themselves and command higher value?
Director, Learning Design & Development| PMIAsheville, NC, United States
Hi PMI Community! I’m Sarah Philbrick, and I work as a Product Manager at PMI with a focus on our learning offerings. As we go on this skill-building journey together, I’m excited to engage in meaningful conversations, explore trending topics, and learn from each other.
Reflecting on one such topic, GenAI and prompt engineering, I am interested to hear your perspective on commoditization vs. differentiation.
Will the widespread adoption of prompt engineering commoditize project management skills, or can it help PMs differentiate themselves and command higher value?
Generative AI will always require a human in the loop. An experienced PM with the technical skills and knowledge of the profession should be responsible for validating any AI output.
...
1 reply by Chinedu Nwoke
Jun 04, 2025 12:05 AM
Chinedu Nwoke
...
I couldn't agree with you more Sergio. Nothing can replace the human touch to projects, not even AI. As such, AI should complement, and not totally replace humans.
Generative AI will always require a human in the loop. An experienced PM with the technical skills and knowledge of the profession should be responsible for validating any AI output. Saving Changes...
Generative AI will always require a human in the loop. An experienced PM with the technical skills and knowledge of the profession should be responsible for validating any AI output. Saving Changes...
Generative AI will always require a human in the loop. An experienced PM with the technical skills and knowledge of the profession should be responsible for validating any AI output. Saving Changes...
Generative AI will always require a human in the loop. An experienced PM with the technical skills and knowledge of the profession should be responsible for validating any AI output.
I couldn't agree with you more Sergio. Nothing can replace the human touch to projects, not even AI. As such, AI should complement, and not totally replace humans. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
I don't think that the widespread adoption of prompt engineering will commoditize project management skills. It can certainly help (and the keyword here is 'help') PMs differentiate themselves however, humans can do what machines can't which is understand the project, scope, and issues real-time. Humans are going to always know more than the data/words that they're inputting into machine. Saving Changes...
Hi everyone, I am Erick, and I strongly believe that the widespread adoption of prompt engineering commoditizes can help project managers differentiate themselves and deliver created value. For example, in my research field, we use machine learning (supervised and unsupervised) combined with the new GenAI to analyze new markets by existing historical data, regression models to predict new data and reduce cost (primary research), and use GenAi to generate and analyze data efficiency and effective in new technologies and create new results that we never explore before. It is incredible how the correct use of GenAI can take your profession and business to a new level of innovation and creativity and unlock high outcomes values in your portfolio projects. Saving Changes...
I have been using a few gen AI tools, specifically chatbots, data analytics tools to simplify my work in day-to-day PM role. They work great for prompts like summarization, comparison and some level of data mining, but there are many use case scenarios where one can't totally rely on the AI tool to get the final solution. For e.g. I tried mining a spreadsheet and convert certain texts into shorter characters required to visually represent my data into a line/bar chart. While the chatbot wasn't able to give me the final graph, it saved me several minutes in getting an excel formula with examples, that I was able to use to convert the big spreadsheet into more sensical data table, and moreover it gave me steps to quickly create the line chart that I eventually wanted. All that within 10min.
So, I see potential in increasing productivity!
Excellent, point of view Sarah, I agree with your statement about the perspective on commoditization vs. differentiation. Definitely, the prompt engineering commoditize project management skills generate higher value in any your portfolio projects. Thank you for sharing!
The adoption of prompt engineering will give value in project management to those who have a good capacity to adapt in this disruptive world.
Excellent analysis Baba, in general I believe the adoption of prompt engineering will give value in project management and the key is the differentiation to adapt in this digital and GenAI era. Excellent point of view. Saving Changes...
PMI Team Member
