The AI Reality Check: What Project Leaders Need to Know Before They Buy In
You don't need more AI hype. You need a way to evaluate it. We'll give project leaders and ops managers a practical framework for knowing what's worth investing in, what to ignore, and where to start.
The agenda
AI in PM tools: hype vs. reality
Which platforms built something new. Which ones rebranded what you already had.
The AI readiness framework
Four questions about your workflows, data, and visibility to answer first.
What high-performing teams get right
The project management fundamentals that make AI pay off.
Live Q&A
Bring the hard ones.
Who this is for
For project leaders, marketing directors, and ops managers under pressure to adopt AI without a playbook.
PMO directors and project managers being asked by leadership to evaluate AI-powered PM tools but without a framework for separating substance from hype.
Operations leaders who've seen every vendor add "AI-powered" to their marketing overnight and aren't sure what's a feature and what's a rebrand.
Marketing team leads managing workflows that work and worried about disrupting them to chase a trend they're not sure applies to them.
Anyone evaluating or re-evaluating their PM platform who wants to make a smart decision instead of a reactive one.
What we'll cover
The conversation your PM vendor isn't having with you.
An honest look at what AI can do for project teams and operations leaders, what it can't, and what has to be true about your workflows first.
PM tool AI: hype vs. reality
Which platforms rebranded old features as AI. Which ones built something that changes how teams work.
The readiness framework
The workflow, data, and visibility diagnostic most project teams skip before evaluating AI.
What high-performers do first
Spoiler: it's process, visibility, and accountability. The project management fundamentals. Not AI.
Vendor evaluation toolkit
Four questions to ask any PM platform vendor about their AI before you sign anything.
Your hosts
Who you'll hear from.
Brian Kohlmann
Director of AI, Emerging Technology, & MarTech
Bader Rutter
Brian has spent 25 years helping organizations make technology decisions. He leads AI and emerging technology at Bader Rutter, working across industries with teams that can't afford to get the next platform decision wrong.
His work bridges the gap between possibility and execution, uncovering connections, sharpening workflows, and identifying new opportunities for value creation. Brian works with marketing leaders who are:
- Overwhelmed by AI hype and need pragmatic guidance
- Struggling to move AI pilots from prototype to production
- Working to get more out of MarTech stacks that have become bloated and underused
- Building data strategies that can support their AI ambitions
- Navigating workforce transformation as AI redefines roles and capabilities
- Evaluating emerging technologies and need strategic guidance on what's worth the investment
Kyndall Elliott
Marketing Lead
Workzone
Kyndall Elliott runs marketing at Workzone as a department of one, and she does it by knowing exactly where AI helps and where it gets in the way. She leans on it for speed and scale across demand gen, content, SEO, and everything in between, but she has learned the hard line between what AI can draft and what still needs a human who understands the audience. That judgment is the whole game.
She built this instinct the hard way, at startups where the job was "figure it out" with no inherited systems and no safety net. Conventional approaches get conventional results, so she would rather test something nobody else is trying. Every channel and every campaign ties back to one thing: helping the right teams find the tool that fits how they actually work.
