From potential to practice: the use of GenAI in project management

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is transforming organizational practices and reshaping professional roles, particularly in project management. Despite growing attention to its technical capabilities, little is known about how project managers use GenAI in their daily tasks. This study addresses this gap by exploring how project managers across different experience levels integrate GenAI into their work routines. With a qualitative study, we collected and analyzed fifteen semi-structured interviews with project managers. Findings reveal that project managers primarily use GenAI for content creation, document summarization and communication, which enables professionals to improve efficiency and productivity. However, effective use requires prompt and context engineering, emphasizing the importance of human oversight and contextual understanding to improve the performance of GenAI outputs. There is also a professional shift from traditional project managers to strategic enablers who focus more on leadership, ethics and critical decision-making while GenAI automatizes and performs administrative tasks. Finally, differences emerged between senior and junior project managers, where seniors tend to approach GenAI cautiously, whereas juniors demonstrate higher adaptability and trust in the technology.