AI in the Room: What PMO Professionals Need to Know Right Now

AI is moving fast. Ridiculously fast, really. And for PMO professionals, the message from James Garner and Yoshi Soornack’s session at Project Forum in London was clear: this is not just another tech trend to keep half an eye on.

James (Head of AI and Data) and Yoshi (Associate Director, AI and Data) both work for Gleeds and they’ve been pushing the boundaries in AI and data – specifically within project management for years now.

The session, “AI in the Room: What Every Project Manager Needs to Know Right Now”, focused on what AI means for project delivery, construction, professional services and, crucially, the people trying to make sense of it all. James and Yoshi brought a strong mix of project delivery experience, AI and data expertise, and a healthy dose of realism about where the profession is heading.

We recorded the session so you can also learn from their session.

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James summed up the scale of change early on:

“We’re living through the Industrial Revolution in real time.”

That might sound dramatic, but the point landed by the large crowd who had gathered to listen to the session.

AI is not sitting neatly on the horizon anymore. It is already reshaping how work gets done, how decisions are made, and what future project roles might look like.

Less About Tech, More About Culture

One of the strongest themes was that AI adoption is not really a technology problem. It is a culture problem.

James made the point that the session would be “less about tech and more around culture” – both personal culture and organisational culture. That is useful for PMOs because this is exactly where PMOs often operate best: helping organisations make sense of change, create structure, support adoption and turn ideas into something practical.

The presenters challenged the idea that AI is “just a tool”. Instead, they encouraged project professionals to think of AI as a thought partner.

A tool waits for instruction but a thought partner helps you test thinking, challenge assumptions, explore options and speed up the boring but necessary bits.

For PMOs, that could mean using AI to:

• draft and review reports
• test risk responses
• summarise lessons learned
• compare portfolio data
• generate stakeholder updates
• create first-cut governance packs
• spot patterns across project information

But – and it is a big but – the human still owns the judgement.

Yoshi made the point that AI still needs guidance and sign-off. James described it as:

“The most intelligent intern you could ever imagine.”

A good analogy which is also a useful warning. You would not give an intern total control of your portfolio reporting, risk process or board pack without review. Same with AI.

From Reporting the Past to Shaping the Future

A big practical takeaway was the move from descriptive reporting to more useful decision support.

Many PMOs still spend too much time reporting what already happened. The monthly pack often looks backwards: what slipped, what went red, what was already late before anyone got into the meeting.

The slides showed the familiar analytics journey:

• Descriptive – what happened?
• Diagnostic – why did it happen?
• Predictive – what will happen?
• Prescriptive – what should we do about it?

The ambition is to move towards real-time, data-driven decisions, where AI helps project teams and PMOs spend less time arguing over stale data and more time exploring options.

James gave a simple example: if AI spots an emerging risk, it could suggest scenarios and possible responses. That changes the meeting from “whose fault is this?” to “what are we going to do next?”

That is a very PMO-shaped opportunity.

AI Will Not Remove the Need for PMO – But It Will Change the Work

There was a clear message that AI will not simply replace project professionals. But professionals who use AI well may outperform those who do not.

James put it bluntly:

“The greatest project manager in the world who doesn’t use AI will be outperformed by an average project manager who does use AI properly.”

For PMOs, the same logic applies. A PMO that uses AI well can become faster, more analytical and more proactive. A PMO that ignores it risks becoming stuck in admin-heavy, backward-looking routines.

The slides also pointed to emerging AI-related roles in construction and infrastructure, including AI data analysts, digital twin managers, AI operations specialists and drone operations managers.

Not every PMO professional needs to become technical. In fact, the session made the opposite point:

“You don’t need to be a coder. You need to be an AI-literate professional.”

The future PMO skillset is not about everyone becoming a developer. It is about understanding enough to ask good questions, brief AI properly, check outputs, manage risks and spot opportunities.

The new course from the House of PMO – Practical AI Skills for the PMO is worth take a look at if you need to start your upskilling.

Governance: The Bit PMOs Should Look Closer At

The governance section was especially relevant for PMO practitioners.

James asked the obvious question:

“How the hell do we make sure we keep all this secure?”

The honest answer was that nobody has the full answer yet. Regulation and standards are still evolving. The slides referenced the RICS responsible use of AI standard, including baseline knowledge, practice management, using AI, development of AI and the idea of “material impact” on service delivery.

That is where PMOs can add serious value.

PMOs are already used to designing controls without killing momentum. That same balancing act is needed with AI. Too little governance and people take risky shortcuts. Too much governance and nobody experiments.

A practical PMO role could include:

• creating an AI usage policy for projects
• agreeing what data can and cannot be used
• defining when human review is mandatory
• adding AI assumptions into risk logs
• creating prompt libraries for repeatable PMO tasks
• tracking value from AI experiments
• supporting communities of practice

In other words, the PMO can help the organisation move from random experimentation to responsible adoption.

Upskilling Is Not Optional

The final message was refreshingly practical: take responsibility for your own AI and data literacy.

James suggested setting aside half an hour to an hour each week to experiment with AI tools. Over a year, that becomes around 52 hours of learning. That is a decent development plan without needing a huge training budget.

The session’s advice was not “wait for the organisation to sort this out”. It was: start learning now.

“Curious is such an important word.”

Curiosity is what stops AI becoming either a panic topic or a shiny toy. It helps PMO professionals ask: where does this genuinely help? Where could it cause risk? What work could be improved, not just automated?

Key Insights

• AI is not just another tool – it changes how project professionals think, decide and work.
• PMOs have a major role to play in turning AI hype into practical, governed adoption.
• The biggest opportunity is moving from backward-looking reporting to real-time decision support.
• AI literacy matters more than coding ability for most PMO professionals.
• Governance is still emerging, so PMOs should help shape safe and sensible AI use now.
• Experimentation is essential – small, regular practice beats waiting for the perfect corporate rollout.
• The human role becomes more important, not less: context, judgement, ethics and meaning-making still sit with people.

Try This in Your PMO

• Pick one repetitive PMO task and test how AI could speed up the first draft.
• Create a simple “AI use in the PMO” checklist: data, purpose, review, risk, approval.
• Run a 30-minute team experiment session.
• Use AI to challenge a risk log: ask what is missing, duplicated or weak.
• Start measuring value: time saved, quality improved, decisions supported.

Next Steps

This session was perfect for those looking to understand where to start with AI in project management.

Here at the House we’ve been tackling the subject for a while now. Here’s some of the next sessions you can take a look at.

Become a Member and Access:

• Read the Insight PMO Report we did on AI and the PMO – it’s still very relevant today [Link]
• We have a lot of Artificial Intelligence focused sessions [See the full list]
• Your next recorded session should be this one [take a look]
• And this beginner session is also a good one to try [get started]

If you’re looking for more advanced topics around AI and project management – you can check out James and Yoshi’s podcast – Project Flux