in Project Management: What It Is,
Why It Matters, and What It Changes
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
By Massimo Pirozzi
11 June 2026
Ref: On the Subject of a Global Standard for AI in Project Management
Dear David,
On June 9, 2026, the Project Management Institute published The Standard for Artificial Intelligence in Portfolio, Program, and Project Management (ISBN 978-1-62825-891-2). Maybe most project management practitioners are not yet aware of its existence. They should be.
This is the first globally recognized, consensus-based professional standard dedicated to defining how artificial intelligence should be adopted, governed, and integrated across portfolio, program, and project management. Developed through PMI’s rigorous voluntary consensus process and spanning about 300 pages, it is structured around seven substantive sections.
The foundation is a set of eight principles: strategic value alignment, AI-specific risk management, governance and compliance, people and culture readiness, ethics and professional responsibility, stakeholder engagement, continuous optimization and innovation, and data quality. These are not aspirational statements — they are the normative backbone from which all other guidance derives.
Built upon those principles are five performance domains, each with defined activities, interdependencies, and outcome criteria: Managing Stakeholder Expectations About AI; Defining the Scope for AI; Designing AI Architecture With Quality and Reliability; Executing Strategic AI Goals; and Managing AI Risks and Uncertainties. The standard then maps a seven-phase AI life cycle — from initiation and planning through data collection, model development, deployment, monitoring, optimization, and end-of-life — and provides tailoring guidance for predictive, adaptive, and hybrid PPPM approaches. A dedicated section addresses the legal and ethical landscape in depth, including data governance, intellectual property, accountability, and the evolving global regulatory environment.
Two structural choices deserve special mention. First, the standard explicitly models AI along an Automation–Assistance–Augmentation continuum, from routine task automation to full human-capability augmentation — establishing a shared conceptual language for how human and machine intelligence interact across the management spectrum. Second, and crucially, it frames AI as both a tool for managing PPPM and a deliverable to be managed through PPPM, providing the organizing logic that practitioners and organizations have been missing…
More…
To read entire Letter to the Editor, click here
How to cite this work: Pirozzi, M. (2026). On the First Global Standard for Artificial Intelligence in Project Management: What It Is, Why It Matters, and What It Changes, Letter to the Editor, PM World Journal, Vol. XV, Issue VII, July. Available online at https://pmworldjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/pmwj166-Jul2026-Pirozzi-On-the-First-Global-Standard-for-AI-IN-PM.pdf
