Project Manager | Driving Clean Energy Innovations for a Sustainable Future| Canadian Nuclear Laboratories Ontario, Canada
AI is showing up everywhere in project management—helping with planning, decisions, risk, and even communication. Some say it’s a total game-changer, making things faster and smarter. Others think it’s just another tool, useful but not really replacing human judgment.
What do you think? Is AI really shaking things up, or is it just a trend?
Program Manager, PPM&PMO Specialist.| Coppel, Mexico.Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico
Zakaria definitely seen some AI tools in action, especially for meeting assists, and they're mind-blowing! It's more than a trend, for sure.Regards! Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
For me it is a hype.
I agree with Sergio that we do this since 30+ years, and recall IBM's MIS - Management Information System - in the 1980s, meant to support management decisions based on data, then came SAP/ERP, insurance automation etc.
Hypes exist because people are made afraid of something, like AI will take your job. No, your attitude will kill your job, and you can only change yourself, not the outside world. Saving Changes...
Great points.
The hype cycle definitely applies here. Do you think we’re still at the Peak of Inflated Expectations, or are we already moving into the Trough of Disillusionment?
Honestly, you could probably argue we are in both, or all of them, and without analyzing too deeply, I see two reasons for this.
The first is that, collectively, we are not all on the same page - we don't, collectively, share a common understanding of what AI is or its limitations. Let me use agile as an example. Twenty years ago, people were trying to figure out where to best apply Scrum while some sales people said agile can solve all your delivery problems. The same questions and sales pitches existed ten years ago, while other voices were starting to publicly question its value. In 2014 Dave Thomas authored "Agile is Dead", but at the same time the adoption of scaled agile approaches was starting to accelerate. Ten+ years later, you can still find current articles about both (although SAFe has been getting its share of hate in recent years - it's not Agile!, according to some). There are companies laying off agile coaches and abandoning agile while other companies are adopting it for the first time, and yet others are customizing their own hybrid approaches in search of the best way to deliver quality and value quickly and consistently (same boat, different oars).
The second side to this, and maybe a contributing factor to the first, is that there is more than one application for AI and these applications are at different stages of development. At its core, Narrow AI may have a similar type of application across industries and processes, but some applications are less mature and have the potential for more innovation while others are settling in and some people are getting tired of the sales pitch.
IMO, the Trough of Disillusionment is most likely to occur when we accept the hype instead of trying to figure out for ourselves what is both possible and relevant for our situation, and the object in question doesn't live up to expectations. This can be difficult to avoid when it takes time for there to be enough easily accessible accurate information to make informed decisions. One of the factors that drives us to the Trough of Disillusionment is the desire for fast answers and the next big thing that's going to give us competitive advantage, especially when the loudest and easiest to find voices are sales people convincing us what they're selling will solve problems we didn't know we had.
I think I'm starting to ramble. Hopefully this makes sense. Saving Changes...
Gen AI is definitely a game changer as it makes work processes very easy. If we take a deep dive across different industries it has make workflow very efficient. Saving Changes...
I think we are slowly moving away from the hype and accepting it as part of our reality. AI innovations are continually expanding and breaking boundaries on all the thematic fronts of Processes, People and Business Environment.
While we have had technology and automation for a while, AI is surely elevating the PM game and there are things (some still under development or uptake) that will soon be part and parcel of the PM role. Saving Changes...
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