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AI and automation for project management: from endless meetings to truly actionable follow-up

•Xavier Vincent
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You manage projects in your SME and feel you spend more time in meetings and chasing people than actually moving things forward? Late minutes, forgotten decisions, tasks buried in email threads… The result: delays, frustration, and the constant feeling of running after information.

In this article, we’ll see how AI and automation can transform your project management without changing all your tools or launching a big IT project. The goal: fewer endless meetings, more clearly tracked actions.

We will:

  • clarify what AI can (and cannot) do for your projects,
  • explore concrete use cases tailored to SMEs,
  • walk through a simple 4-step method to get started,
  • finish with a practical checklist you can use this week.

1. What AI can really do for SME project management

When people think about AI for project management, they often picture complex tools made for large corporations. In an SME, things are much simpler: AI is mainly an assistant that prepares the work, and automation is a safety net that prevents things from falling through the cracks.

1.1. AI as an upgraded “meeting secretary”

Modern AI can:

  • summarise meetings automatically (video calls or audio recordings),
  • extract key decisions, owners, and due dates,
  • turn those decisions into a structured task list, ready to be pushed into your tools (Trello, Asana, Notion, Excel, CRM…).

AI is not there to decide for you. Its main job is to make sure your decisions don’t get lost in a 6-page document nobody reads.

Typical SME example:

  • Weekly 45-minute sales meeting.
  • AI generates a clear summary including the action items:
    • Follow up with client X before Friday (owner: Paul)
    • Send the new proposal to Y (owner: Sarah)
    • Update the price list for the 1st of next month (owner: Management)
  • These actions are automatically pushed to a simple task board.

1.2. Automation as the project’s safety net

Automation will not manage the project for you. But it can:

  • create tasks automatically when something happens (new client signed, purchase order approved, incident created…),
  • send smart reminders ahead of key dates,
  • keep a basic dashboard up to date (for instance a Google Sheet or a simple table in Notion), without repetitive data entry.

The objective is not to build a huge project platform, but to have:

  • a reliable task list,
  • automatic reminders,
  • a simple view of project progress.

2. Four concrete AI and automation use cases for your projects

2.1. Turn your meetings into a clear action plan

Scenario from a real services SME:

  • Before:
    • 1-hour weekly steering meeting,
    • a Word document sent afterwards, rarely opened,
    • decisions forgotten from one week to the next.
  • After introducing an AI assistant:
    • the meeting is recorded (with everyone’s consent),
    • AI produces a structured summary: decisions, risks, open questions,
    • actions are exported into a simple Kanban board.

Result:

  • Each person receives only the actions that concern them.
  • The manager can see at a glance what is done, in progress, or late.

2.2. Connect your projects to your customers without double entry

Many SMEs keep project tracking separate from their CRM or invoicing system:

  • sales close deals,
  • operations discover commitments too late,
  • customer follow-up lives in multiple spreadsheets.

With a bit of automation, you can:

  • automatically create a project or job file as soon as a deal is marked as won in your CRM,
  • pre-populate it with:
    • customer name,
    • key dates (kick-off, milestones, delivery),
    • main contacts.

Then AI can help you:

  • analyse incoming project emails,
  • suggest follow-up replies,
  • highlight risk signals (delays, confusion, urgent demands).

2.3. Track risks and bottlenecks without manual reporting

In many project meetings, a large portion of the time is spent just listing problems. AI can:

  • scan minutes, emails, and tickets,
  • group recurring issues,
  • generate a prioritised risk list.

You get, with almost no extra effort:

  • a monthly summary of key blockers,
  • suggested corrective actions,
  • a more fact-based view of issues (beyond gut feeling).

2.4. Prepare steering committees in minutes, not hours

Instead of spending 2 hours collecting scattered information, you can:

  • ask AI to summarise overdue actions,
  • compile important decisions made since the last meeting,
  • draft a proposed agenda for your next committee.

Automation can then:

  • prepare this report ahead of each committee (for example the day before),
  • send it automatically to each participant.

Result: the steering meeting focuses on decisions, not on catching up.

Rendering diagram...

This diagram shows a simple flow: the meeting becomes the starting point for all operational follow-up, without extra manual work.

3. A simple 4-step method to get started in your SME

You don’t need to redesign your whole project organisation. Start small, on a single scope, for a limited period (for example 30 days).

Step 1 – Pick one pilot project

Choose a project that ticks these boxes:

  • lasts a few weeks to a few months,
  • involves several people (management, operations, maybe a client),
  • includes at least one recurring meeting (weekly or bi-weekly),
  • has visible impact (customer delivery, opening a new site, launching a product, etc.).

Avoid, for your first test:

  • highly sensitive projects (restructuring, layoffs, mergers…),
  • projects already in crisis.

Step 2 – Standardise decisions and actions

For 1 or 2 meetings of this pilot project:

  • use a simple table with the following columns:
    • Decision taken
    • Owner
    • Due date
    • Status (to do / in progress / done)
  • enforce a clear end-of-meeting ritual:
    • “What are the 5 key actions before the next meeting? Who does what, by when?”

You train your team to think in terms of actions. AI will then help formalise and automate this logic.

Step 3 – Add an AI assistant to structure meetings

On the same pilot project:

  1. Record the next meeting (with everyone’s consent).
  2. Send the recording to the AI tool you’ve chosen (built into your video tool, or a dedicated assistant).
  3. Ask it explicitly to:
    • produce a short summary,
    • list only decisions and action items in a table (Owner, Action, Due date),
    • ignore discussions with no impact.
  4. At first, copy these action items manually into your existing tool (spreadsheet, Trello, task manager).

You can later automate this transfer with no-code tools (Zapier, Make, Power Automate…), but start semi-manual to validate the approach.

Step 4 – Automate reminders and meeting preparation

Once you have a structured action table:

  • set up a basic automation that:
    • sends an email reminder 2 days before each due date,
    • flags overdue tasks in a dedicated view or tab,
    • prepares a short report before each meeting (overdue tasks + decisions to make).

You now have a minimal viable system:

  • decisions are captured,
  • actions are tracked,
  • reminders no longer depend on the manager’s memory.

4. Practical section: checklist to launch AI in your project management

Here is a checklist you can use right away.

4.1. Within 1 day

  • [ ] Pick a pilot project with a recurring meeting.
  • [ ] Define a simple action format: Owner / Action / Due date.
  • [ ] Explain the objective to the team: save time, avoid missed tasks, not spy on people.

4.2. Within 7 days

  • [ ] Record one meeting (with everyone’s consent).
  • [ ] Test an AI tool to generate a summary and action list.
  • [ ] Compare its output with your manual notes.
  • [ ] Choose an action tracking tool (spreadsheet, Kanban, CRM…).
  • [ ] Implement a first reminder automation (email or internal notification).

4.3. Within 30 days

  • [ ] Use AI summaries for all meetings of this pilot project.
  • [ ] Add an automatic report sent before each meeting.
  • [ ] Measure the impact:
    • less time spent in meetings,
    • fewer forgotten tasks,
    • improved visibility for management.
  • [ ] Decide whether to extend the approach to other projects.

Conclusion

By integrating AI and automation into your project management, you’re not trying to reinvent everything. You’re aiming to:

  • turn your meetings into clear, actionable plans,
  • secure task follow-up without mental overload,
  • better connect your projects to customers and day-to-day operations,
  • prepare steering meetings in minutes instead of hours.

If you move step by step, starting with one pilot project and then expanding, you can significantly improve execution without changing all your tools or your entire organisation.

If you’d like support with your digital transformation, Lyten Agency can help you identify and automate your key processes. Contact us for a free audit.

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