Revisiting automated project management in the digital age – a survey of AI approaches

In this decade, remarkable progress has been made in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Inspired by well-known services of cognitive assistance systems such as IBM Watson, Apple's Siri or Google Duplex, AI concepts and algorithms are widely discussed regarding their automation potentials in business, politics and society. At first glance, project management (PM) seems to be less suitable for automation due to the inherent uniqueness of projects by definition. However, AI is also creating new application possibilities in the PM area, which will be explored in this contribution by involving an extensive literature review as well as real-world examples. The objective of this article is to provide a current overview of AI approaches and available tools that can be used for automating tasks in business project management.