In this episode of AI Today, host Kathleen Walch welcomes Jennifer Tharp, president of Mastodon Consulting, former PMI Board chair, PMI Fellow, and also PMP and PMI-CPMAI certified. Jennifer discusses how AI is transforming project management, not just as a tool but by reshaping the work itself.

She highlights three forces as the new bottleneck: collapsed estimation, distributed authorship, and quality assurance. Traditional artifacts like Gantt charts and risk registers risk irrelevance, requiring project managers to evolve into decision governors who make choices visible, accountable, and aligned with organizational goals.

Key insights include:

• Learn how AI makes delivery unpredictable and how PMs can adapt estimation practices.
• Discover how responsibility for AI‑driven decisions is moving, and how PMs can claim it to stay relevant.
• Grasp how human review lags behind machine speed, and how new QA approaches can close the gap.
• Explore how PMs move beyond artifacts to frameworks that make choices visible and auditable.
• Learn how skills such as critical thinking, judgment, and communication keep PMs indispensable in the AI age.

Jennifer stresses that passive observers who do not embrace AI risk losing relevance and why PMs must claim accountability before it shifts elsewhere. She emphasizes that AI will soon be embedded in projects by default, but success depends on durable frameworks, rigorous governance, and enduring leadership to ensure ethical, measurable outcomes.