Dilemma: Project Manager Role in AI Era

I am working with IA from 1989 in research and practical applications in all type of projects and into project management and business analysis roles application. First of all: AI is a board term. Unfortunately some people and organizations, today, are confusing generative AI which AI. Second, what you stated is something that has been discussed from long, long time ago. Third, AI is based on "human in the loop" concept. Mainly today with generative Ai where things like Agent and Agentic architectures demands human intervetion to adjust models and answers. No matter that, what indeed will happened, is that people that are not able to use AI, mainly generative AI, will be impacted in keep their job or find a new job. AI is just a tool, no more than that.

I think Human Edge is what AI can not replace. Empathy, real time decisions, stakeholder engagement and people first and balance between client and people is where real humans as project managers will always be needed. AI can compliment the ongoing tasks for managers and enhance their productivity but not replace them.

Interesting point.
I think AI may reduce part of the workload for both Product Owners and Project Managers — especially in drafting, summarization, and backlog support.
But that does not remove the need for either role.
POs still create product clarity and set priorities, while PMs drive alignment, manage trade-offs, and ensure accountable delivery.
AI may reshape the work, but not replace the value behind it.

AI is a great tool but we don't think they're going to be replacing everything that a project manager does in its current iteration. With AI becoming bigger and bigger, I think great project managers and product owners are going to be able to utilize it to become more productive themselves.

AI is great for work like generating insights from the data you collect. An example of this is the use case of lessons learned. Wouldn't it be great if you could generate insights from the lessons that your project managers are learning to help make smarter data-driven business decisions?

This is how we're leveraging AI as project managers and have even built a tool to do this called WorkshopIQ.

Yes, that's the importance of involving competent people in the refinement of generative AI.

It would be a major problem to replace someone who is competent and understands what an AI Agent needs to do—in this case, the product owner/project manager—with someone who isn't. The results will inevitably lack detail.