AI upends key pillars of project management

AI offers the potential for operational efficiencies, reductions in human error, a solution for employee attrition, and split-second analytical recommendations, but the reality is that no one — in the business, outside the business, or even CIOs themselves — knows whatto expect from AI. And still, businesses are aggressively pursuing it, in many cases in hopes of transforming their organizations. What we do know for sure is that AI deployment is like other IT projects in one important respect: Its success depends on employee, customer, and management acceptance. Ultimately, the degree to which AI is accepted by these constituencies “level-sets” how far AI can be adopted. Common areas of level-setting include employee willingness to adopt AI in their work, customer willingness to accept AI-based customer service, management trust in AI decision-making, and AI integration with systems of record. In traditional IT projects, there was no level-setting — only user acceptance testing to let