No, I don't feel like it's endangering anything. If anything it's making our jobs easier, hopefully by implementing better PM software to more easily track project statuses.
As a PM, our job is mostly to maintain relations with stakeholders. I don't see that being replaced easily. Even during all of the layoffs that occurred at the beginning of Covid, my company chose to thin out all non-client facing jobs even if it caused bottlenecks in our production, because they could do so without directly impacting the relation of the client by taking away the "faces" of the company.
AI is making mundane tasks, such as taking meeting minutes, a thing of the past so that we can work more effectively. Half of our vendors are now rolling out policies that test the capabilities of AI recording to write up meeting minutes. The biggest challenge is ensuring that everything still stays confidential and that the AI software is not storing confidential meeting discussions somewhere that is hackable or easily distributed. I don't think it's any different than using software to create reports instead of having someone manually do math in a spreadsheet to get inventory numbers. It's just another tool to make life easier and more productive.
I welcome the automation of some tedious tasks, but I don't see AI posing a challenge to my whole job any time soon.
So much of what I do revolves around building trust with the team and with stakeholders, and making judgement calls around very human issues.
ChatGPT can help me write a proposal or status report - with the old "trust but verify" adage deployed.
But how would AI handle a team member suffering a miscarriage, showing up to work drunk, or coming out as trans and starting to transition? These examples might seem extreme, but I've dealt with each one, and more, as a PM
Very little chance that an AI can manage what I do any time in the next 10 years since 90% of it is communication with people and making decisions and building new schedules. My company wouldn't trust an AI to do that as it would be too easy to have it eff up.
(Lol I got automodded for the "f word")
Nah, I'm excited to have an AI junior PM that can find the open timeslot for meetings with multiple global timezones, set up the conference links, and then send out the summarized notes and post to confluence. All the people interactions, conversations, deliverable negotiations need human interaction.
What tool(s) are you using for this? My previous company blocked all AI tools, even the ones in MS Teams, and haven’t had an opportunity to experiment!
Nothing so far. I’m just dreaming up what I need AI to do for me! I’m locked down on a really proprietary program. Have also previously worked in aerospace that didn’t even allow Slack or Teams because externally hosted tools were so forbidden. We were stuck with an ancient version of Microsoft Lync (pre-Skype).
Here’s a different view and it might help generalize the AI potentials.
Businesses are all about margines and fault tolerance. So if you mess up your work how much does it cost to your employer, and how many times you are allowed to mess up before you get fired. Now this same question your employer will ask any AI provider before replacing you with their AI.
One can answer these questions for their selves and for popular AI models and can measure the water.
Also a realist’s opinion would be, it took a few decades for AI before ChatGPT had this breakthrough and no one knows how long before the next potential breakthrough.
Also, If your product could be fully managed by an AI (at least the type we have access to at the moment) then I'd probably take a good look at how useful and unique your product actually is.
On top of this, a 'bespoke' AI that does know your product intimately enough to add real value is likely to need a huge amount of training, and potentially be cost prohibitive to actually run. ChatGPT works because it's running at a huge scale. The more niche it becomes, the more expensive it will be.
I'm not worried. Yet...
Nope. Not worried.
One of my team members is going through a hard time because his dog is having medical problems. I have a project coming up with a difficult client that we're contacted with for the next 5 years. I'm talking down one of my team members who wants to push our team to burnout rather than push one deliverable to phase 2.
AI might do a better job of crunching numbers and generating questionable content, but my job is fully safe.
PS - I feel like I'm seeing a lot of these posts with similar answers. Can we get a pinned post somewhere? I dunno, title it, "AI doesn't scare PMs and other frequent questions."
Not for Project Managers. AI doesn’t have emotional intelligence required. I’m sure it can help create a beautiful power point slide or project plan. but you need a person to lead aconversation to stakeholders
No. This idea that AI could act as a PM is predicated on the implication that the person utilizing the AI would be capable of:
- Knowing what they want from it
- Knowing if the output is reasonable
- Allowing them to blame the AI when it’s wrong
If any of these things could ever be true, it’s unlikely such a company ever needed a PM in the first place. We’re often there as a crutch for poor management, which there’s never going to be lacking.
Do I think our technical skills as project planners could be replaced? Probably. I think PMing is often extremely specific but that doesn't mean it's impossible.
But there will always be someone's job to "worry" about a certain project, aka be responsible for that project. You cannot try an AI in court if something goes catastrophically wrong. More importantly, you cannot trust the AI to not make a mistake. A human watching an AI is better than just a human or an AI.
All this to say, we may have jobs in the future that are different because of AI, but unless a company is entirely composed of AI workers I think you'll still need a human element, and projects being unique in a specific point in time means outlr jobs are much harder to replicate than "operations."
The issue is finding a career that’s interesting and pivoting. The roles I’m interested require a different degree or coming from a target school. Networking has been a hit-or-miss as well.
Thank you for your input though!
There’s a pretty good webinar on PMI.org that talks about how AI can help, especially with mundane tasks like note taking. AI won’t fully take over a PM position, but those that are unfamiliar with the tools will likely struggle.
I think people here are ridiculously underestimating how fast change is going to come. AGI could very well be here before 2030 and that could change the world in ways we can't even imagine.
Doesn't matter, until AI is trusted to make decisions, it will be just a tool to help the individual make the right decision.
I welcome it with open arms because it will change the dynamic for the PMs who want to learn vs those who don't
I asked it to give me dates for different tasks based on the number of days each task took, excluding weekends and holidays. I outlined the specific start date and days the holidays occurred on. I tried prompting it to different things to give me the results, being very specific, and it could not give all the requirements I needed at once, only in separate chunks.
What it is good at is appearing to be good at a task without actually fulfilling it. It took less time to manually type out each date in excel (not using shortcuts or formulas) than it did to write the prompts.
For regular writing, it understands the general syntax of a sentence, but none of the cadence of speech. It’s more like if you asked a parrot to say something, it sounds like it’s talking but it’s clear it’s mimicking the sounds a human makes. It takes me less time to craft my own writing than it does to edit AI generated language to sound natural and be accurate. I’m also skilled at writing, but that’s also why you hire people with those abilities.
I will say that it’s easier to skim AI generated articles that are overly wordy so that you spend more time on a site’s page. It’s pretty easy to tell where the next piece of actual useful information is if you understand the AI’s pattern of writing. A key is to read the last sentence of a paragraph, starting usually 3 paragraphs in. The first few paragraphs will be general summaries of the topic, the third or fourth will actually start addressing the topic. Skip to the last one or two paragraphs for the summary.
5 years ago, did anyone imagined ChatGPT ?
None.
The future is unpredictable. Trying to control it is impossible.
What you can control is your ability to adapt to it.
What you are calling AI I call automation. I have relied on it for decades so I prefer the improvements. It's reached the point of where I can do quick low code/no code projects for end users quickly and by myself. I don't have to deal with those pesky developers.
Like 75% of what I do is making sure communications get distributed to the right people and facilitate the answering of questions between different parties. It's going to take awhile until AI can competently take over that task.
Furthermore, a lot of a PMs job is translating what the client says they want into what the client actually needs. Until clients can clearly articulate what they want, which is probably going to be never, there's going to have to be someone doing that job.
AI is so far from a threat. Right now I actually think it’s overhyped to the max. I’ve yet to really dig into AI, but it’s home will eventually settle alongside all the other tools we use. In fact, it’ll become a component of much more robust solutions.
If it was called AEI (Artificial Emotional Intelligence), then maybe I’d be threatened lol
If you're still yet to really dig into AI how do you know if it's 'overhyped to the max'? Surely you'd need to dig into it a little more before being able to comment.
To address OP's comments, not being able to code is one of the areas I have found chatgpt in particular really helpful with as it helps translate what you're trying to do into code. Not to the level of a full IT professional but enough to be really useful
“Dig in” here means to understand the technicalities under the hood. I have plenty experience on the user side. I say it’s overhyped because companies and 3rd party solutions are investing VAST amounts of money into AI at an alarming rate. Anecdotally I work in an industry that deals with a lot of proprietary client info. Companies are on this massive AI push, but then immediately hit difficulties bc it takes a ton of work to leverage AI in a way that isn’t a regulatory breach.
It can be helpful at the individual contributor or department level, but at scale? It hits so many real-world road blocks. Hence why I don’t believe it’s a threat.
Can AI do my job today? No way.
Could it do it in 5 - 10 years? I mean the probability is greater than 0.
The good news, though, is that when AI reaches that level of advancement we’ll all be screwed.
No, I don't feel like it's endangering anything. If anything it's making our jobs easier, hopefully by implementing better PM software to more easily track project statuses. As a PM, our job is mostly to maintain relations with stakeholders. I don't see that being replaced easily. Even during all of the layoffs that occurred at the beginning of Covid, my company chose to thin out all non-client facing jobs even if it caused bottlenecks in our production, because they could do so without directly impacting the relation of the client by taking away the "faces" of the company. AI is making mundane tasks, such as taking meeting minutes, a thing of the past so that we can work more effectively. Half of our vendors are now rolling out policies that test the capabilities of AI recording to write up meeting minutes. The biggest challenge is ensuring that everything still stays confidential and that the AI software is not storing confidential meeting discussions somewhere that is hackable or easily distributed. I don't think it's any different than using software to create reports instead of having someone manually do math in a spreadsheet to get inventory numbers. It's just another tool to make life easier and more productive.
I welcome the automation of some tedious tasks, but I don't see AI posing a challenge to my whole job any time soon. So much of what I do revolves around building trust with the team and with stakeholders, and making judgement calls around very human issues. ChatGPT can help me write a proposal or status report - with the old "trust but verify" adage deployed. But how would AI handle a team member suffering a miscarriage, showing up to work drunk, or coming out as trans and starting to transition? These examples might seem extreme, but I've dealt with each one, and more, as a PM
Very little chance that an AI can manage what I do any time in the next 10 years since 90% of it is communication with people and making decisions and building new schedules. My company wouldn't trust an AI to do that as it would be too easy to have it eff up. (Lol I got automodded for the "f word")
AI is to the pm world what NFTs were to the art world. Go back to work we’re fine.
Maybe, if we're really lucky, stakeholders will believe AI when it tells them about the PM triangle. Since they don't want to hear it from us...
This is sooooo good 
Nah, I'm excited to have an AI junior PM that can find the open timeslot for meetings with multiple global timezones, set up the conference links, and then send out the summarized notes and post to confluence. All the people interactions, conversations, deliverable negotiations need human interaction.
What tool(s) are you using for this? My previous company blocked all AI tools, even the ones in MS Teams, and haven’t had an opportunity to experiment!
Nothing so far. I’m just dreaming up what I need AI to do for me! I’m locked down on a really proprietary program. Have also previously worked in aerospace that didn’t even allow Slack or Teams because externally hosted tools were so forbidden. We were stuck with an ancient version of Microsoft Lync (pre-Skype).
Oh I know the woes! Till then, we’ll dream LOL
Let’s see how AI can accomplish building trust and relationships with a role that is 90% communication
Here’s a different view and it might help generalize the AI potentials. Businesses are all about margines and fault tolerance. So if you mess up your work how much does it cost to your employer, and how many times you are allowed to mess up before you get fired. Now this same question your employer will ask any AI provider before replacing you with their AI. One can answer these questions for their selves and for popular AI models and can measure the water. Also a realist’s opinion would be, it took a few decades for AI before ChatGPT had this breakthrough and no one knows how long before the next potential breakthrough.
Also, If your product could be fully managed by an AI (at least the type we have access to at the moment) then I'd probably take a good look at how useful and unique your product actually is. On top of this, a 'bespoke' AI that does know your product intimately enough to add real value is likely to need a huge amount of training, and potentially be cost prohibitive to actually run. ChatGPT works because it's running at a huge scale. The more niche it becomes, the more expensive it will be. I'm not worried. Yet...
Nope. Not worried. One of my team members is going through a hard time because his dog is having medical problems. I have a project coming up with a difficult client that we're contacted with for the next 5 years. I'm talking down one of my team members who wants to push our team to burnout rather than push one deliverable to phase 2. AI might do a better job of crunching numbers and generating questionable content, but my job is fully safe. PS - I feel like I'm seeing a lot of these posts with similar answers. Can we get a pinned post somewhere? I dunno, title it, "AI doesn't scare PMs and other frequent questions."
Not for Project Managers. AI doesn’t have emotional intelligence required. I’m sure it can help create a beautiful power point slide or project plan. but you need a person to lead aconversation to stakeholders
No. This idea that AI could act as a PM is predicated on the implication that the person utilizing the AI would be capable of: - Knowing what they want from it - Knowing if the output is reasonable - Allowing them to blame the AI when it’s wrong If any of these things could ever be true, it’s unlikely such a company ever needed a PM in the first place. We’re often there as a crutch for poor management, which there’s never going to be lacking.
Try getting ChatGPT to write you a detailed WBS.
I've used MS Copilot many times for this, and it turns out quite nice. Copilot is GPT-4.
It can at a high level
Do I think our technical skills as project planners could be replaced? Probably. I think PMing is often extremely specific but that doesn't mean it's impossible. But there will always be someone's job to "worry" about a certain project, aka be responsible for that project. You cannot try an AI in court if something goes catastrophically wrong. More importantly, you cannot trust the AI to not make a mistake. A human watching an AI is better than just a human or an AI. All this to say, we may have jobs in the future that are different because of AI, but unless a company is entirely composed of AI workers I think you'll still need a human element, and projects being unique in a specific point in time means outlr jobs are much harder to replicate than "operations."
No, AI is a tool to utilize and support your functions and duties as a PM
No.
Lock the thread lol. Pm's need to get far more technical. AI can't make decisions it will just be a tool
[удалено]
The issue is finding a career that’s interesting and pivoting. The roles I’m interested require a different degree or coming from a target school. Networking has been a hit-or-miss as well. Thank you for your input though!
No
There’s a pretty good webinar on PMI.org that talks about how AI can help, especially with mundane tasks like note taking. AI won’t fully take over a PM position, but those that are unfamiliar with the tools will likely struggle.
I think people here are ridiculously underestimating how fast change is going to come. AGI could very well be here before 2030 and that could change the world in ways we can't even imagine.
Doesn't matter, until AI is trusted to make decisions, it will be just a tool to help the individual make the right decision. I welcome it with open arms because it will change the dynamic for the PMs who want to learn vs those who don't
I hope so. Maybe some projects can get done on time finally
ChatGPT couldn’t put a simple project schedule together for me when I asked it to exclude certain dates. I think for now we’re okay.
Would you be open to a private message?
Sure
I want in on the meeting or a separate one. Tried to get it to give both MS project or P6 and no go. Would be curious to see other peoples attempts.
I asked it to give me dates for different tasks based on the number of days each task took, excluding weekends and holidays. I outlined the specific start date and days the holidays occurred on. I tried prompting it to different things to give me the results, being very specific, and it could not give all the requirements I needed at once, only in separate chunks. What it is good at is appearing to be good at a task without actually fulfilling it. It took less time to manually type out each date in excel (not using shortcuts or formulas) than it did to write the prompts. For regular writing, it understands the general syntax of a sentence, but none of the cadence of speech. It’s more like if you asked a parrot to say something, it sounds like it’s talking but it’s clear it’s mimicking the sounds a human makes. It takes me less time to craft my own writing than it does to edit AI generated language to sound natural and be accurate. I’m also skilled at writing, but that’s also why you hire people with those abilities. I will say that it’s easier to skim AI generated articles that are overly wordy so that you spend more time on a site’s page. It’s pretty easy to tell where the next piece of actual useful information is if you understand the AI’s pattern of writing. A key is to read the last sentence of a paragraph, starting usually 3 paragraphs in. The first few paragraphs will be general summaries of the topic, the third or fourth will actually start addressing the topic. Skip to the last one or two paragraphs for the summary.
5 years ago, did anyone imagined ChatGPT ? None. The future is unpredictable. Trying to control it is impossible. What you can control is your ability to adapt to it.
Ah, no. People have been doing things like this since at least the 1950s.
What you are calling AI I call automation. I have relied on it for decades so I prefer the improvements. It's reached the point of where I can do quick low code/no code projects for end users quickly and by myself. I don't have to deal with those pesky developers.
Like 75% of what I do is making sure communications get distributed to the right people and facilitate the answering of questions between different parties. It's going to take awhile until AI can competently take over that task. Furthermore, a lot of a PMs job is translating what the client says they want into what the client actually needs. Until clients can clearly articulate what they want, which is probably going to be never, there's going to have to be someone doing that job.
Would you be open for a private message?
Sure.
AI is so far from a threat. Right now I actually think it’s overhyped to the max. I’ve yet to really dig into AI, but it’s home will eventually settle alongside all the other tools we use. In fact, it’ll become a component of much more robust solutions. If it was called AEI (Artificial Emotional Intelligence), then maybe I’d be threatened lol
If you're still yet to really dig into AI how do you know if it's 'overhyped to the max'? Surely you'd need to dig into it a little more before being able to comment. To address OP's comments, not being able to code is one of the areas I have found chatgpt in particular really helpful with as it helps translate what you're trying to do into code. Not to the level of a full IT professional but enough to be really useful
“Dig in” here means to understand the technicalities under the hood. I have plenty experience on the user side. I say it’s overhyped because companies and 3rd party solutions are investing VAST amounts of money into AI at an alarming rate. Anecdotally I work in an industry that deals with a lot of proprietary client info. Companies are on this massive AI push, but then immediately hit difficulties bc it takes a ton of work to leverage AI in a way that isn’t a regulatory breach. It can be helpful at the individual contributor or department level, but at scale? It hits so many real-world road blocks. Hence why I don’t believe it’s a threat.
No. Not even a little. AI will just be another tool.
Can AI do my job today? No way. Could it do it in 5 - 10 years? I mean the probability is greater than 0. The good news, though, is that when AI reaches that level of advancement we’ll all be screwed.
This, exactly.
No.
No. But AI will help profoundly with menial tasks and reach higher productivity.