--- title: "Will AI Make the PMO Obsolete? - In Parallel" description: "AI won’t replace the PMO but it will force it to evolve. In this post, co-founder Kristian Luoma explains why situational awareness, not reporting, is the real strategic advantage. Learn how AI-powered tools like Pulse and the GPS framework can help transformation leaders move from inertia to intelligent execution." url: https://www.in-parallel.com/insight/will-ai-make-the-pmo-obsolete --- Intelligent Management System # Will AI Make the PMO Obsolete? Why automation won't kill the PMO — but it will transform it. Will AI Make the PMO Obsolete? Published May 8, 2025 Kristian Luoma Co-founder, CPO kristian@in-parallel.com [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kluoma/) Contents Program Management Offices (PMO) aren’t going away, but the old model of quarterly slide decks and status theatrics is. In this post, co-founder Kristian Luoma explores how AI is reshaping the future of strategic execution. From Nokia to scale-ups, he shares lessons from the field — and why the PMO of tomorrow won’t manage plans, but momentum. ## AI Will Eat the PMO (As We Know It) I’ve spent the better part of my career inside transformation programs — the ones with big ambitions, big budgets, and usually, big frustrations. If you’ve ever led or supported a PMO in an enterprise, you’ll know the feeling: despite all the planning, reporting, and governance frameworks in place, something always slips. The team is out of sync. The plan is out of date. Everyone’s busy, but no one’s sure if what they’re doing still matters. We don’t fail because of bad ideas. We fail because we lose situational awareness. Now, with AI entering the picture, a new question is being asked in boardrooms and strategy teams: will AI automations make the PMO obsolete? **No. But they will finally make it strategic.** ## Why AI Will Upgrade the Way We Do PMO Work I’ve led major programs across large enterprises and scale-ups — multi-year transformations, acquisition integrations, digital overhauls. And I’ve watched a familiar pattern play out in nearly all of them: We lose the plot. Teams fall out of sync with the mission. Priorities shift, but no one updates the plan. Strategy becomes a backdrop, not a driver. And by the time the post-mortem rolls around, everyone agrees: “We had the right ideas — but something got lost in execution.” To make this point, all I need to say is “Nokia,” and I’m sure you’ll know what I mean. Through more experience, I’ve come to learn that “that something falling out of place” is usually situational awareness. And that’s where AI — and more specifically, In Parallel — is changing the game. Let’s start with the uncomfortable truth: most PMO work can be a bit of process theatre. Status reports. RAG dashboards. Timeline management. Slide decks no one reads. Someone at the recent Strategy Execution Forum in Amsterdam described project dashboards as watermelons: all green on the outside, red in the middle. AI can help transformation leaders, program managers, and strategy execution practitioners do the important work of maintaining programs — better, faster, cheaper. And it should. If your PMO is still running on manual check-ins, static spreadsheets, and once-per-quarter insights… you’re not managing strategy. You’re managing inertia. ## GPS: From Slide Decks to Situational Awareness We recently launched a product called [Pulse](https://www.in-parallel.com/archive/solution/pulse) — an agentic AI phone call that can gather the status of programs faster than you can boil a cup of tea. We’re building In Parallel because we’ve seen too many strategic initiatives quietly derail — not from bad ideas, but from poor collective prioritization and disconnected execution. In Parallel’s Intelligent Operating Model runs on GPS — not the turn-by-turn kind, but a framework that keeps strategy grounded in reality: **Goals → Problems → Solutions** It’s a simple loop that asks: - What are we trying to achieve? - What’s getting in the way? - What are we actually doing about it? This sounds basic. It is and it isn’t. Most organizations can articulate their goals. Few can name the real blockers. Fewer prioritize actions based on those blockers. And almost no one does it in real time. Powered by AI, [the GPS framework](https://www.in-parallel.com/insight/why-your-strategy-needs-a-fresh-perspective-part-1) is radically different from any static approach to managing progress: it transforms strategy from a quarterly slide deck into a living, real-time, adaptive system. ## What AI Can Do Now Imagine an AI system that can: - Detect emerging obstacles from risk logs, Jira tickets, or Slack chatter — or the human-like conversations the AI has with different employees - Correlate those obstacles across initiatives - Suggest priority shifts based on what’s actually threatening your goals - Generate scenarios: “What if we doubled down on X?” or “What if we paused Y?” - Cascade those solutions into new sub-goals, with ownership and visibility baked in This is not a dream. That’s the In Parallel [Intelligent Operating Model](https://www.in-parallel.com/archive/solution) — and we’re building it to help teams stop reacting and start adapting. The real magic isn’t just in automation. It’s in helping humans see what’s most important — now. Because here’s the truth: **The biggest killer of strategic initiatives isn’t complexity.** It’s chasing the wrong thing for too long without realizing it. ## Lack of Situational Awareness Kills Most Execution Initiatives I’ve seen this at every level: - At Nokia, during the height of its market share in mobile phones, programs moved fast but often lost the thread of [strategic alignment](https://www.in-parallel.com/insight/executive-guide-to-strategic-alignment) — often competing internally more than externally - At a large bank where I used to work, agile transformation became complex too easily, with increasing numbers of tribes and silos to manage - In a scale-up, where I ran strategy, everyone was “busy” but few could explain what really mattered in that moment No framework or tool solved these problems. Even with OKRs, Balanced Scorecards, or quarterly business reviews — we were too often flying blind. We had goals. We had metrics. But we didn’t have awareness. We didn’t ask: - What’s the most urgent obstacle today? - Which team is solving the biggest problem? - Which solution has stopped being relevant — and why are we still funding it? With GPS, those questions aren’t afterthoughts. They are how we manage success. ## PMOs Are Not Dead — But They Need to Grow Up AI won’t replace the PMO. But it will replace old PMO thinking. That’s a good thing. The PMO of the future isn’t a status gatekeeper. They’re a strategy operator. Their job is to: - Continuously observe the terrain (inside and outside the business) - Orient the team around what’s changing - Decide and act — quickly — before issues compound Sound familiar? That’s John Boyd’s OODA loop in action. GPS makes it real. In Parallel’s Intelligent Operating Model lets AI do the grunt work: - Pulling signals - Clustering patterns - Surfacing problems So humans can do what they’re best at: - Framing the right decisions - Judging and adapting plans - Making the hard tradeoffs that AI can’t see ## A Better Way to Prioritize We didn’t set out to build an AI PMO. We set out to solve a frustration we know too well: Strategy doesn’t fail at the goal level. It fails when new problems emerge — and no one adjusts. With GPS at the core of our AI-native operating model, we help teams: - Track goals and the obstacles in their way - Prioritize based on problem severity and solution impact - Make every solution a new goal in the hierarchy — with visibility and accountability baked in That’s not a dashboard. That’s a new operating rhythm. And we think it’s what every modern PMO should be striving toward. ## Final Thought: Strategy Is a Loop, Not a Plan AI won’t magically make your strategy succeed. But it can help you stay aligned, aware, and adaptive — unlike anything that’s come before. In the end, the best PMOs won’t be the ones who resist AI — they’ll be the ones who wield it. If you’re a PMO lead, program manager, or strategy exec trying to rally your team — or just tired of watching the same mistakes on repeat — contact us for a better way. Let’s stop chasing last quarter’s plan. Let’s build for what matters now. ### Get insights like this in your inbox One email per week on execution intelligence, team coordination, and enterprise AI. No fluff. By subscribing you agree to our [Privacy Policy](https://www.in-parallel.com/privacy-policy). Unsubscribe anytime. [Back to all insights](https://www.in-parallel.com/insight) [Book a demo](https://www.in-parallel.com/demo) ## Related articles The Coordination Tax — Richard H. Carson on how change actually works Leadership Insights · Oct 20, 2026 ### You Either Manage Change or It Manages You: Richard H. 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