By Jon Mort, CTO, The Adaptavist Group
Strategically incorporating AI into product development is a critical imperative for modern project leaders. This isn’t just about technological innovation—it’s about fundamental business survival.
AI tools are here to stay, and they will improve over time. From automating meeting recaps to providing instant, tailored insights from team notes and schedules, AI tools can streamline workflows, reduce repetitive tasks, and enable smarter decision-making. Successfully harnessing this functionality to further agile principles in the workplace could fundamentally transform how teams create, collaborate, and innovate, creating exciting opportunities for the future.
However, as with any new ‘revolutionary’ tool, there are potential drawbacks that need to be anticipated to ensure success and avoid reducing complex discussions to mere AI transitions. We must be careful not to allow AI tools to undermine the interpersonal collaboration and learning that drives innovation and value in agile environments.
How AI is Delivering Value for Agile Teams
Agile teams thrive on quick, informed decision-making to keep pace with evolving requirements and market demands. AI summarisation has transformed this process by streamlining knowledge gathering and reducing time-consuming manual workloads. With AI summarisation tools in their back pocket, agile teams can stay ahead of the curve, working more cohesively and efficiently.
By 2030, Gartner predicts that AI will eliminate 80% of today’s project management tasks. Soon, mornings spent combing through customer feedback, lengthy project updates, and actions from meetings will be a thing of the past. AI can supply employees with specific guidance and tailored information, helping them kick off their day armed with actionable insights on where to start, and what they need to accomplish. Mornings can be spent ‘eating the frog’ instead of fretting over admin tasks and details that AI effortlessly irons out.
AI summarisation is like an enhanced version of Google that provides a personalised blog with direct answers and context in response to any question you ask. It also extends to live meetings and video calls, where AI can actively listen in on team calls and meetings, recap key information and actions for employees to refer back to, and support them to operate asynchronously without being limited by location or timezone. This combats the distortion of trickle-down communication and reduces the chances of misinterpretation, enabling greater flexibility and allowing leaders to manage communication more efficiently.
AI-powered project management tools, such as real-time language translation are also proving revolutionary, eliminating language barriers and enabling effortless collaboration across borders. They improve virtual and physical workspaces by automating tasks like booking rooms and information sharing. This saves time and reduces friction, allowing teams to focus on group brainstorms and collaboration. Employees don’t have to think about the logistics of getting together and can instead focus on the creativity behind idea sharing.
Protecting Human Collaboration in a Technology-Driven World
However, AI also changes the dynamics within teams. Normally, you’d ask for information, source it, and have a conversation with someone about why it’s important. Now, those conversations may not take place, so it’s critical that we find new ways to maintain the feedback loops that are crucial to agile. Otherwise, we risk relying too heavily on Large Language Models and losing interpersonal collaboration.
The upside of using AI tools to support routine tasks is that teams are free to focus their energy on meaningful collaboration, ensuring that innovation remains a collective effort driven by shared goals rather than isolated outputs. But this will only happen in practice if teams have a real understanding of what true agility is. They must recognise that it isn’t just about speed, but encouraging open communication, shared understanding and mutual trust among team members.
Agentic AI poses a significant threat and is already beginning to change how workers and businesses interact with the technology. On the face of it, AI agents are giving teams superpowers – designed to complete specific tasks or processes by perceiving their environment, processing information, and taking actions based on their programming and learned experience rather than human input. However, over-dependency on these agents may mean teams lose the ability to critically assess complex scenarios or adapt to new challenges, relying on automated decisions rather than their judgment.
It’s essential not to over-rely on AI without human oversight. AI tools are powerful, but they lack the intuition, empathy, and contextual understanding that humans bring to the table. Not to mention they are run on data – and we’re yet to see an algorithm for ‘common sense’! Balancing AI insights with human judgment is important to ensure that decisions are well-rounded and that any biases or limitations in the AI’s programming are accounted for
Involving your team in the selection and implementation of AI tools can help – not only does this encourage a sense of ownership and reduce resistance but it also ensures that the tools chosen align with your organisation’s specific needs and goals. When your team has a say in how AI is introduced, they are more likely to embrace the technology and use it effectively.
AI is Agile’s Future
In our fast-paced agile world, embracing AI is both inevitable and essential to ensure that teams are working at their most efficient. Not only are AI summarisation, project management, and chatbot tools accelerating the speed at which information is shared and digested, they are making for more informed and faster decision-making.
But ChatGPT or the latest copilot is not a replacement for your human colleagues. We must hold onto the human aspect of working before it’s too late. If we don’t, there is a risk that the very framework of collaboration and alignment that agile holds dear may be compromised.