When was the last time you looked at your project management app and didn’t get a stress level spike? No matter how much you plan or reprioritize, it always feels like running a sprint on a tightrope. But now that AI is in the game, we can pass that stress over to the robots.
With AI being added to almost every app in existence, we’ve seen a surge in AI project management tools. There’s still no replacing the human project manager, but AI project management apps can help things move more smoothly, so more time can be spent working on the projects instead of managing them.
I spent a month looking through all the project management software options that have added AI to the mix. Then I narrowed it down, testing only the ones where AI was really changing how things worked. Based on that research and testing, these are the five best.
The 5 best AI project management tools
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Asana for AI-powered productivity recommendations
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ClickUp for asking questions about your projects
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Wrike for predicting project risks
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Height for an AI-automated workspace
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Hive for planning a project from a prompt
What makes the best AI project management software?
Every project and task management app promises to reduce the friction between what you have to do and actually doing it, helping you and your team prioritize and manage your time. With AI, the promises are bolder—but not all apps follow through on it. Like in other app categories, the easiest way to implement AI is adding generative text features. Useful? For sure. But generating project summaries isn’t as useful as risk predictions, workflow optimization, or smart recommendations.
So for this list, I got strict and rated these apps based on the following criteria:
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AI features. All the apps on this list use AI for solving core problems around project management, not just slapping an AI text generator on top of the platform.
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Built for teams. While there are plenty of AI task managers out there for individuals, that’s not what this list is about. There are no personal productivity use cases here, only apps that’ll help your team save time.
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Project management focus. Even if the apps lean on the all-in-one side, each of my picks has a specialized set of project management features.
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Automation and integrations. AI is a great addition to automation, but having the classic automation tools available is still very important.
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Platform reputation. I steered clear of apps with poor reviews or a bad track record. As new AI apps pop up, it’s important to be sure you’re not jumping on board a sinking ship.
I spent a month signing up for everything I could find, activating the AI features, creating projects, and pretending I was moving forward on them. I observed what changed as I did so, taking notes on how AI improved the experience on each app.
The strict project management focus here means that apps like Notion, Airtable, and monday.com didn’t make the cut. While these apps have robust AI features, their implementation is more general, tackling a wider set of problems around content generation, summarization, and Q&A. I invite you to try them if you’re interested, but if you want to solve your project management pain points, let’s dive right in.
The best AI project management tools at a glance
Best for |
Pricing |
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AI-powered productivity recommendations |
AI included in paid plans starting at $13.49/user/month |
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Asking questions about projects |
AI features cost an additional $5/user/month on paid plans; plans start at $10/user/month |
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Predicting project risks |
AI included in paid plans, starting at $10/user/month |
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AI-automated workspace |
AI included in free plan; paid plans from $19/user/month |
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Planning a project from a prompt |
Some AI features in free plan; full AI access from $7/user/month |
Best AI project management tool for productivity recommendations
Asana (Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android)
Asana pros:
Asana cons:
Asana already has a strong position in the project management scene. It offers a lot of depth both to manage the workload buffet and help you finish what’s on your plate, with good visibility on where things stand along the way. While it has great front-and-center AI features, it takes the trophy for all the behind-the-scenes magic that helps you stay on track. Let me give you a quick tour.
Asana Machine Learning gathers metadata generated as you work: data on relationships between you and other workspace users, your interactions with projects and portfolios, and task-related data. As Asana ML processes this metadata, it adds relevance sorting to your inbox, suggests the next task you should jump on, and provides shortcuts for teams and workspace items you interact with.
Beyond this background work, Asana’s “Powered by AI partners” features add an extra layer of productivity. They can help with the now-classic text generation, but they also include other, more interesting possibilities: Smart status detects open questions and roadblocks, while Smart goals uses workspace data to set achievable objectives. And Asana keeps building on top of this feature iceberg, as there are more smart features consistently jumping out of contextual menus and side tabs.
One last gem: Asana offers an AI-powered project overview screen, where you can see a summary and ask for a generated report on tasks based on their status. The report pulls data from the workspace to identify owners, show blockers, and suggest action steps to get back on track.
If you like what you’re reading so far, hop in and give it a try. And if you’re in the mood for new, productive experiences, connect Asana with Zapier to further increase its powers, automating Asana across thousands of other apps. Learn more about how to automate Asana, or get started with one of these pre-made templates.
Asana price: AI included in paid plans starting at $13.49/user/per month
Best AI project manager for asking questions about your projects
ClickUp (Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android)
ClickUp pros:
ClickUp cons:
ClickUp is an all-in-one app, offering dashboards, chat channels, and project management. But instead of integrating a standard AI chatbot and calling it a day, it lets you ask questions and generate AI reports on your projects. This is an intuitive and quick entry point to seeing how everything is moving forward.
When you’re looking at your dashboard, check out the top-right side of the screen. Click the Ask AI button, and the side tab will pop into view. From here, you can use one of the conversation starters. For example, you can ask about who created which tasks, URLs saved inside them, and information about status. Further down, you’ll see more powerful tools:
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Space summary opens a list of data you want to include in a report, including tasks by type, assignee, or task themes. Once you hit Generate, it summarizes and presents the data you chose to include.
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Project update presents a similar list, but with filters to help you select which time range you’d like to see. The result is a new report that shows what changed, a good way to track progress in periods of time.
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Find duplicate tasks combs your lists for tasks that are essentially the same, so you can clean up your spaces.
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Find tasks that are stuck shows all the tasks that have been hanging around your space uncompleted, so you can start troubleshooting.
Keep in mind that, every time you close the Ask AI tab, the conversation is cleared. Sometimes that’s a boon because I want to start a new conversation, but other times, it’s a problem because I didn’t want to lose the report I had there.
Beyond these AI project management features, ClickUp has plenty of other AI to offer: for example, AI knowledge management to help your team ask questions and get accurate answers on internal company topics and an AI writer to turn everyone into a clear communicator.
You can also use Zapier’s ClickUp integrations to connect it to thousands of other apps and do things like automatically create tasks based on emails or Slack threads. Learn more about how to automate ClickUp, or get started with one of these pre-made templates.
ClickUp price: AI features are available for $5/user/month as an add-on to any existing paid plan; those plans start at $10/user/month
Best AI project management software for predicting risks
Wrike (Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android)
Wrike pros:
Wrike cons:
Wrike uses AI to predict project risks—a real problem that humans haven’t quite figured out.
Using machine learning, Wrike Intelligence analyzes your workspace, assesses your project complexity, and figures out how many tasks it takes to go from zero to complete. It then looks at how many of these are crossed out or still to do. It checks the number of assignees to see if it’s a solo gig or a collaborative effort, also checking the workload and overdue tasks per user—both current and past trends. Finally, it processes the task activity to understand if anyone’s picked it up yet.
All this data helps determine a pattern of how you and your team work. At the start of a new project, you can get a preliminary risk assessment, predicting if there could be any blockers coming up. As you and your team work, your projects get a green, orange, or red AI assessment to show how they’re looking. Green means Dave is happy by the watercooler during morning break; red means he’s hammering away on his computer, with 12 overdue and 10 unassigned tasks staring him down.
This replaces all the mental calculations and clicks around the interface to find out if your project is on track or not. That info will now be on the dashboard, clear for everyone to see.
On top of the risk prediction, Wrike has plenty of other AI features as well: it generates text, regenerates blunt comments for clarity, and summarizes communications, among other options.
And you can do even more with Wrike by connecting it to Zapier, so you can automate workflows across thousands of apps. Learn more about how to automate Wrike, or get started with one of these pre-made workflows.
Wrike price: AI is only available on paid plans, which start at $10/user/month
Best free AI project management app for an automated workspace
Height (Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android)
Height pros:
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Real-time productivity vibe
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Plenty of keyboard shortcuts and command bar available
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AI available on the free plan
Height cons:
Using project management apps effectively has a lot to do with automation. When a task is completed or a project reaches its end, there’s a mini-party of actions that make it seem like your workspace is working on its own. Height turns this impression into truth: here, you have an AI project manager ready to turn data into actions.
When creating a new project, Height puts together the main project page showing the core information about it. You can go ahead and edit the project summary or key roles if you want. Alternatively, use the chat window on the right side to coordinate with your team. As Height reads your conversation, you’ll notice that it starts updating the document on the left side automatically, accurately transposing the information in the chat channel into the project details.
When you click on the task list view, you can start writing them in, hitting Enter or return to save them as you go. Height automatically fills the fields for each task, labeling them based on type and even assigning them to the people who are responsible for completing them.
Another cool feature here is automated team standups: instead of having to go on Zoom and relay everything you did over the course of the day or week, Height picks that up for you and generates your contribution on the spot. That way, your manager will have the full report on the entire team to read, potentially saving you meeting time to discuss other pressing matters—or skip the meeting altogether.
The best part? Height is the only app on this list where all the AI features are part of the free plan.
If you want to spread this automation trend even further, connect Height to Zapier and make admin a thing of the past. Here are some workflows to get you started.
Height price: Generous free plan available; paid plans from $19/user/month
Best AI project management software for planning a project from a prompt
Hive (Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android)
Hive pros:
Hive cons:
Sometimes it’s a new project type, and you don’t know where to start. Other times you know exactly how it goes—but do you want to drop the tasks into the app yourself? No matter if this is your first or thousandth rodeo, Hive can get you there with its project-from-a-prompt tool.
You’d expect this feature would be easily accessible from the main user interface, but the development team at Hive turned it into a mini-treasure hunt. On the top-right of the screen, click the blue question mark button, and go to the template library. A pop-up appears, and there it is: click the Let Buzz plan your project button. You’ll leave the main interface and arrive at the project generation screen that you see in the screenshot above.
It really is super easy and intuitive to use: add a project title, and send it to Buzz. A stream of tasks will appear on the right side of the screen, split by phase and including start and end dates. You can keep trading messages with the AI to make tweaks. When you’re ready, click the Create Project button, and you’ll be taken back into the main app—along with your freshly created tasks, of course.
Beyond this prompt-to-project tool, there’s a collection of AI assists named HiveMind. You can generate content, get more tasks for a project, and edit and translate text. You’ll access these contextually throughout the app, adding prompts where needed and getting the results right there.
When you’re done plotting all the work you have to do for the quarter, connect Hive to Zapier, and automate even more of your project management. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Hive price: Some AI features included in the free plan; paid plans with all AI features from $7/user/month
Project automation with AI
I long for a day when I don’t need to think to interact with my project management suite. When it manages my time and workload in perfect sync with the demands of the day and my energy level. While that may still be in the making, the best AI project management apps today can already do a lot to keep your eyes on the ball, not on the coach.
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