Hey! You Got Your AI Stuck In My Project Management Tool!
Looking under the hood at AI integration in Monday, Clickup, Taskade, and Asana.
Everyone is slapping the term “AI” on everything.
I was listening to NPR the other day. One of its sponsors was Rocket Mortgage, which claimed that it was now powered by AI.
The loaf of bread I threw into my cart at the grocery store had a sticker on it that said, “Now packed with more AI!”
That’s a joke, but the fad of adding AI to almost anything is getting downright ridiculous.
I'm a project manager who uses AI tools. When I see “AI” stamped on them, I wonder how they use AI.
Or are they just putting me on?
Vanilla versus Awesome Hotness AI
If you start researching project management tools that use AI, their features fall into a couple of buckets.
I call them Vanilla and Awesome Hotness.
Vanilla AI is just as it sounds - it’s the Gen AI we are used to using, like ChatGPT or Claude.
Sometimes, the tool won’t even hide that it’s using ChatGPT as its base model.
The project management tool usually calls this functionality an “AI assistant.” It acts like a ChatGPT prompt - you can enter your typewritten commands (“Help me polish this text.” or “Condense these meeting notes.” and it will generate an AI enhanced block of text.
Awesome Hotness is a leap above vanilla and is what project managers may expect when AI is touted in their project management tool.
With this next-level AI, the software can access ALL of your project data. When I say all, I mean ALL of your data.
It knows the tasks, timelines, team members, action items of meetings, deadlines, and whatever else you input into the tool.
The developers of these tools have generated pre-formatted system prompts based on typical project manager queries such as “Analyze my team’s workload” and can start making predictions based on that data.
Just a precaution here - some tools may require a particular plan to access the more advanced AI tools.
Let’s look at four of the most popular project management tools and see what they deliver.
Oh, I don’t get paid for any of this analysis, so you get feedback from an unbiased source. Plus, I’m totally old school and use MS Project.
Monday
Monday has been advancing its tech for quite a while and has integrated many AI features into its PM software.
It uses Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI for its AI capabilities, but they do not use the data that you provide to train its models.
Let’s explore what they offer.
Monday Vanilla AI:
Monday has an “AI assistant” which can provide basic AI functionality.
Monday boasts about having an AI writing assistant that automates task generation. It picks keywords from your emails or action items and formats them for inclusion in task lists.
If you want assistance composing an email - it can lend a helping hand, but it’s no different than asking ChatGPT to punch up your stakeholder letter to sound more impressive.
Need a document or a long-winded task summarized? Monday’s assistant can break that down for you.
Monday Awesome Hotness AI:
If you have used Monday, you know it’s based on “boards” comprised of tasks. The AI functionality is linked to the boards you create.
One of the cooler AI features is Automated Task Generation. Once you have generated a board for a project, you can ask the AI to fill in any tasks you think you may have missed based on your deadlines and goals.
Monday has another pretty powerful feature —it’s called Formula Builder. Every project manager tracks budgets, and you can integrate the formula into your board to track resource or time expenditures.
To simplify repetitive tasks, you can create Monday Automations. It knows when a task is done and can send reminders and emails. There are some pre-made automations you can plug in to get started.
The text generation AI tool and the formula builder tool would be helpful to project managers.
Clickup
Clickup’s AI tool is called the “Clickup Brain” instead of the typical “AI Assistant” moniker.
Some features may be the same as Monday but are named differently.
Clickup utilizes ChatGPT-4o (the turbo version).
Clickup Vanilla AI:
Clickup’s primary AI offering includes an “AI Writer for Work” (where else would you use an AI writer…) that can create emails, auto-reply to standard questions in chat, create meeting transcripts, generate templates, and create knowledge base articles that your whole staff can use with an “AI Knowledge Manager.”
Clickup Awesome Hotness AI:
An AI-powered Status Report Generator, branded the “AI Project Manager,” is included. This tool can provide updates on project progress, team performance, and milestones.
Automation is also a key feature - users can automate action items, create subtasks, and auto-fill data.
As a torment (or benefit) to your team, Clickup can also do instant daily stand-ups
These tools use NLP (Natural Language Processing) to allow users to ask questions conversationally.
The “AI Project Manager” is an exciting offering and makes me wonder if I should be afraid for my job.
Then I remembered I was the one inputting the data, and Clickup needed a human in the loop.
One regret was the lack of information on some of these key AI features. With Monday I was able to access support pages for more information. I was unable to find these with Clickup (I needed to do a free trial).
Taskade
To be honest, I had never heard of Taskade before I searched for AI-compatible project management tools.
Once I started digging around, I was pleasantly surprised to find an intricate set of tools that a nerdy project manager would love.
Let’s dig into Taskade.
Taskade Vanilla AI:
Taskade has an AI “assistant” (can’t anyone think of a more original name?). It can be accessed through the menu or several command prompts. For instance, if you wanted the AI assistant to summarize a document - you would type
/summarize.Other commands that could execute were:
Brainstorm
Prioritize tasks
Generate subtasks
Translate
Outline
Re-write
Expand
Ask (based on the AI’s existing knowledge)
Taskade Awesome Hotness AI:
One of the most interesting aspects of Taskade was the implementation of custom AI agents.
According to Taskade, you could automate 700+ tasks with AI agents for marketing, sales, support, HR, startups, and agencies. Also, you could generate mind maps and workflows.
With the AI Project Studio, you can also generate a whole project from scratch in Taskade using AI. This tool uses ChatGPT-4 to help users build out the project.
It doesn’t have to be a project - you can generate proposals, project pitches, and email campaigns.
If you could implement endless AI agents in Taskade, you could significantly reduce your workload. I can only imagine what advanced users can accomplish with their tools.
Asana
Asana is one of the biggies in the project management world.
If you are interested in all of Asana's AI capabilities, you need to upgrade to the higher tiers of the software.
After reviewing the first three project management software contenders, let’s see if Asana can compete with them.
“Asana AI” is labeled as a bunch of “Smart” features.
Asana Vanilla AI:
Asana has the standard LLM generated responses through it’s “Asana AI” - it consists of:
Smart Editor - which features AI-powered suggestions to make writing clearer and make task suggestions.
Smart Summaries - This is a tool to get concise summaries of projects, tasks, and portfolios.
Asana AI can also improve or enhance your emails or documents like ChatGPT can.
Asana Awesome Hotness AI:
The AI that is actually integrated offers some features that go beyond the basic AI implementation.
Smart Status - Quick updates on the status of your projects and tasks.
Smart Answers - Offers AI-powered answers to your project management questions.
Smart Fields - AI learns to populate crucial fields for up-to-date status automatically.
Smart Rules - Asana AI creates custom rules, ensuring routine processes are managed efficiently.
Smart Goals - Analyze existing goals and Asana AI offers improvements. These improvements may include adding success criteria, impact summaries, parent goals, supporting subgoals, and assigning accountable teams.
Smart Projects - Asana AI provides suggestions for descriptions, sections, and custom fields based on the project's name and purpose.
Depending on your plan with Asana, there are limits to using the AI functionality.
You can’t find much information on Asana.com. Instead, Asana wants you to sign up for a demo and a sales pitch.
Kind of disappointing and their offerings seem more lightweight than the other ones we saw.
Asana is developing a couple of features (Smart Charts and Smart Onboarding) so constant upgrades are occurring.
Closing thoughts
Whew! Project management tools have come a long way with the introduction of AI.
With tools like Taskade I thought I would spend my time creating agents rather than managing projects or engaging in face-to-face discussions with my team.
I don’t want to become an AI prompt engineer but to fully utilize these tools' capabilities; you may need to take a couple of free courses to gain some skills.
Just remember to use the technology wisely and that you drive the final decisions for your team.
AI-Driven Tools for PMs
timeOS - timeOS is an AI productivity companion that captures and summarizes your day, organizes all relevant information within the right tool, and proactively surfaces the knowledge you need, when you need it
Shram - Reward daily work with AI-assisted project management
Crew - Easy hire and onboard your global team with AI
Bluedot - Ditch the tedious task of taking meeting notes and let AI record, transcribe, and summarize them in a snap
AI News PMs Can Use
Generative AI is helping 89 percent of project leaders to be more efficient at work, says PMI
AI-Driven Project Management Sees 90% Positive ROI Among Users
The Future of AI: Key Takeaways from Sigma Computing's "AI Leaders Spill Their Secrets" Webinar
Cool ChatGPT Prompt for PMs
Resource analysis
Analyze the resource requirements for [project name] given the current scope and provide recommendations for optimal resource allocation.