Abstract
Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping how organizations plan, execute, and govern projects, yet management scholarship has not defined the “AI project manager” as a distinct organizational role, treating AI-related competencies mainly as prerequisites for AI readiness rather than as constituents of an evolving role. This study conceptualizes the AI project manager from practitioners’ perspectives and delineates the associated competency profile. Adopting an exploratory qualitative design, we combined Morse’s concept-development method with framework analysis across eight semi-structured expert interviews with practitioners self-identifying as AI project managers in six countries and the IT, fintech, and edtech sectors. Nine role attributes were derived from the literature and tested against the interview data; seven were confirmed, while data-driven decision-making and human-AI collaboration were reclassified as distinguishing rather than universal. Framework analysis distinguished competencies participants raised unprompted from those named in the interview questions. Prompt engineering was the most widely volunteered (six of eight) and is the study’s principal emergent finding, while AI literacy, AI ethics, adaptability, emotional intelligence, and leadership were endorsed by all eight but under direct prompting and are therefore reported as confirmed rather than emergent; competency development was largely self-organized. The study offers an empirically grounded role concept for organization and management scholarship, practical implications for human resource development and professional certification, and a transferable methodological template for conceptualizing emerging roles under technological change.