Katrenia Reed Hughes, an associate professor of organizational leadership at Purdue University Indianapolis, will present at the PMI Mass Bay Chapter Project Leadership Summit 2026 in Boston this fall. Her session, "AI Can Assist. Leaders Must Decide: Influence, Judgment, and Trust in Project Leadership," argues that AI can speed up project work but cannot replace the judgment calls that leaders must own.
AI assists, leaders decide
Hughes said AI provides efficiency by analyzing information, identifying patterns, and creating drafts. She cautioned that technology cannot replace the human work of leadership.
"Leaders still have to make the judgment calls," Reed Hughes said. "They still have to build trust, navigate competing priorities, create alignment and help people move through uncertainty together."
Effective leadership requires more than adopting advanced tools, Hughes argues. Professionals must recognize when to rely on technology and when to pause, bringing human judgment, influence, and connection into critical decisions. Project managers can find training tailored to this balance, such as an AI Learning Path for Project Managers.
About the summit
The PMI Mass Bay Chapter organizes the summit to connect regional project management professionals and industry leaders. The event takes place in Boston in the fall.
The question of when to trust AI extends beyond project teams. Managers across functions face the same call, and the AI for Management tag collects articles on these questions.
Why this matters for managers
AI tools can handle analysis and drafting, but trust, alignment, and judgment remain human responsibilities. Teams that adopt AI without clear leadership risk automating the wrong things. Managers should decide which decisions stay with people before scaling AI use, and make sure their teams have both the training and the authority to exercise judgment.
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