Project managers who are worried about the prospects of artificial intelligence one day stealing their jobs might do well to consider a career change as soon as they can.

That’s because Gartner Inc. analysts predict that AI software will eliminate around 80 percent of all project management office or PMO tasks by 2030. That includes tasks such as data collection, reporting and tracking, all of which will soon be done by software rather than by humans.

Gartner says project management is ripe for an AI takeover as program and portfolio management or PPM software providers begin adding new technologies to their products. The discipline is also set to be disrupted by new players in the market.

“AI is going to revolutionize how program and portfolio management leaders leverage technology to support their business goals,” said Daniel Stang, a research vice president at Gartner. “Right now, the tools available to them do not meet the requirements of digital business.”

But by 2030, Gartner said, company executives will be able to ask systems which projects are associated with specific businesses, get status updates and capture items from meetings. These tasks are mostly performed by humans, but in future they’ll increasingly be handled by chatbots, and performed more accurately too.

“Using conversational AI and chatbots, PPM and PMO leaders can begin to use their voices to query a PPM software system and issue commands, rather than using their keyboard and mouse,” Stang said.

As such, Gartner is recommending that project and portfolio management leaders start to consider how they can implement new technologies such as conversational AI, machine learning and robotic process automation, as soon as possible.

“As AI begins to take root in the PPM software market, those PMOs that choose to embrace the technology will see a reduction in the occurrence of unforeseen project issues and risks associated with human error,” Stang added.

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