Ai - Hype Or A Real Potential For Project Management

Since the late 80ies researchers have been looking into the application of Artificial Intelligence in project management. At the beginning the focus was on particular tasks or functions and how those could be supported by AI. The early focal point was on the construction industry due to its more standardised processes, larger scale and availability of data. Computers were at that time not widely used and rather expensive which was another factor that larger construction projects were more suitable to think about using AI. At that time, researchers concentrated on planning, scheduling, controlling and monitoring (sources) and thought about automating them. After a long period of no real revolutions in project management, AI technologies could transform not only the life of project managers for the better but also project management itself. Although AI research in other domains, especially from technical or functional perspectives, seems rather advanced, within project management the topic is emerging. In computer science the number of papers has exploded over the last years whereas AI has not been considered yet as hot topic in the International Journal of Project Management. Based on a literature review covering the last five years, we will present the current state-of-the-art of AI technologies in project management, its potential for transforming the way we do projects as well as future research areas for the successful adoption of AI technologies in managing projects better.