We Used AI For Project Management And These Tools Saved Us Hours Weekly

“How do you close projects faster?”

We get asked that question a zillion times.

And just so you know, you’re not alone.  

Like most agencies, repetitive tasks of project management have been a ball-and-chain for us, too. They slow you down and zap your bandwidth meant for thinking, strategizing, and delivering value.

Turns out, Bonny Chhatbar, Project Lead for Project Management, overcame some of these biggest productivity challenges by automating repetitive tasks with AI. 

Heads-up: These AI tools for productivity won’t replace your team’s expertise, experience, or the workflows you’ve sharpened over time. However, they will eliminate the mindless busy work and free up brain space for high-impact tasks.

So, we’re sharing the playbook here.

After all, in our 12+ years of helping over 600 agencies scale operations across 52+ countries, we at Mavlers have learned one thing: when someone on our own team finds a smarter way to get things done, we don’t keep it to ourselves.

In this blog, we’re popping the hood on how one of our project leads used AI tools for project management and shaved hours off their time by automating manual tasks. You’ll see how it’s helping us wrap up projects faster—and how you can build something similar for your own team.

The bottleneck: Manual tasks that add no value

At any given time, we’re juggling 5–7 projects. WordPress builds. Shopify migrations. Full-blown redesigns.

Somewhere in between shipping work and hopping on client calls, we kept tumbling down the same admin rabbit hole:  status updates across tools, weekly reports, MOMs, and last-minute final decks.

If these tasks were creative and challenging, we wouldn’t have complained—bring on the tough stuff. But this was the opposite: repetitive, manual, and mind-numbing. Just relentless.

That’s when Bonny decided to experiment.

She wanted to see if AI for project management tools could help us move faster without compromising quality, communication, or team sanity. Spoiler: they did.

AI for project management that took the repetition out of our tasks

You know how there is more to agency project management than handling timelines (and three clients pinging you for “just one quick thing”).

Creative briefs. Brand decks. Launch docs. Approvals. Revisions. Each task mystically germinates into three more.

And when you’re split across campaigns, platforms, and feedback loops, repetition doesn’t just pile up—it blows up like a Gremlin fed after midnight.

This is where AI actually got down to business and made a real difference in our workflow. We didn’t use it to rethink the entire system. Just to remove the parts that slowed us down.

Here’s how:

1. Task status updates in ClickUp

Tools used: ClickUp AI + Native Automations

One of the biggest productivity drains most teams face is keeping task statuses up to date across multiple projects.

Manual management meant endless email threads,  delays, and occasionally confused handoffs.

To tackle this, we turned to ClickUp’s AI features combined with its native automation capabilities.

This is how you can customize ClickUp AI for setting up your workflow:

Now, what we automate with AI may sound simple, but it has made a big impact.

What we automate:

• Task statuses now update automatically whenever related subtasks or project dependencies change.

For instance, when a developer marks a QA subtask as complete, ClickUp instantly moves the parent task to “Ready for Review” before anyone even thinks about it.

• AI-generated summaries keep the entire task history clean, clear, and easy to follow.
• Scheduled AI agents run daily project reports across ClickUp workspaces.

• Reports pull latest updates, progress, and blockers. Instead of a person having to run or collect reports manually, ClickUp’s automation will do it on a schedule.

Real example: Shopify store build

A real example where this made a huge difference was during a Shopify store build. We were managing six different page templates and over 100 SKUs.

With the dev team deep into ClickUp and QA trailing due to poor handoffs, we automated status transitions.

Result:

• Fewer back-and-forth emails.
• The QA team got real-time task visibility and jumped in faster.
• Saved ~3 hours/week on just status checks.
• Eliminated the repetitive “update, check, and report” cycle. 
• More time to focus on moving projects forward instead of chasing project admin.

Pro tip: ClickUp lets you bring your everyday tools into one workspace, so automations aren’t siloed. The unified approach set up a powerful hub for streamlining recurring project management tasks with AI.

Setting up automation using clickup AI project management tool looks like this:

2. Auto-formatted project summaries with Descript.ai

Tool used: Descript.ai

Keeping everyone on the same page after frequent stakeholder meetings hogs a maddening amount of time on your calendar.

You miss a beat, and follow-ups get delayed, tasks slip through the cracks, and your project momentum decides to do a face-plant.

To solve this, we integrated Descript.ai into our workflow.

What we automate:

• Even if a stakeholder missed the meeting, Descript can step in as a silent assistant. This AI tool for productivity automatically transcribes our audio and video calls into text as a single source of truth.

• With transcription, we spare our teams the horror of going back and forth on the video timelines.
• We use this AI tool to automate the organization of meeting notes,  separating action items by stakeholder.
• Additionally, separating action items by stakeholder brings real relief from the manual grind of knowing who is responsible for what.
• Descript’s AI-generated meeting minutes got us to rethink just how much productivity gets threatened trying to format and summarize notes after back-to-back meetings. 
• Now producing ready-to-send MOMs is just a matter of minutes, not hours. Plus, they land fully formatted, so you don’t have to retouch them manually later.

Real example: WordPress redesign for a Golf club

Frequent catch-ups with multiple stakeholders meant extensive follow-up work.

Descript’s automated summaries ensured:

• Clients got crisp, clearly formatted meeting notes.
• Reduced confusion.
• Stopped scope creep in its tracks.

3. Instant Client Presentations with SlidesGPT + PresentationGPT

Tools used:

• SlidesGPT
• PresentationGPT

Client-ready decks have always been one of those necessary evils. You need them to fortify client relationships. But creating them? That’s another story.

In Bonny’s words—

”For the simpler presentation, such as status updates or post-kickoff reports, I’d usually block off a couple of hours just to pull content together and clean up the layout.

And for the more involved decks? Easily a week or two, especially if research was involved or I had to involve data teams, designers, and subject experts, sometimes delaying stakeholder alignment and slowing the entire project.

That’s time I’d rather spend, you know, actually managing the project.”

That’s why Bonny turned to AI-powered tools like SlidesGPT and PresentationGPT.

What we automate:

• With this AI productivity tool, we simply have to input a detailed prompt outlining the presentation structure and project specifics. 

• Normally, a designer or a PM would have to manually plan the headings, order, and logical flow of the slides before making them. But the tool here takes my prompts and automatically generates a structured presentation outline.

• The tools then instantly generate a polished deck—complete with clean formatting, logical flow, and on-point visuals.

• It took minutes, not hours to get ready with a presentation-ready deck. 

Real example: Post-kickoff report for a web dev project

We needed a post-kickoff report to share with our client. Thanks to SlidesGPT….

Result:

• The client got a share-ready presentation the very same day.
• The rapid turnaround aligned stakeholders without waiting on the designer or project manager to block extra hours for manual slide creation.
• We closed the feedback loop more quickly and maintained project momentum. And saved both our team and clients valuable time and effort.

Client decks will always matter. But they don’t have to be manual, draining to look the part.

AI for project management has changed that. Now, it’s automated, streamlined, and almost instantly deliverable. Essentially, time, resources, and energy have been saved.

As Bonny put it, “My time is better spent actually managing the project, not obsessing over color schemes and font hierarchy.”

TL;DR: How we used AI in project management

• ClickUp AI automated status updates, reducing manual check-ins and saving ~3 hours/week during complex builds like Shopify stores.
• Descript.ai turned meeting recordings into formatted summaries and stakeholder-specific action items—faster follow-ups, less confusion, zero scope creep.
• SlidesGPT + PresentationGPT auto-generated client decks from prompts—helping us ship presentations same-day instead of burning 2–14 hours.

Across AI project management tools, we reduced the time spent on formatting, recaps, and follow-ups, freeing PMs to focus on tasks that no AI can replace.

Total Weekly Time Saved: ~9 to 13 hours

The road ahead

In case you’d like to know a little more about streamlining your workflow,  we have quite a few reads that’ll help you scale smart and keep delivery on point:

• How Mavlers Avoid Misaligned Expectations During Projects
• The Busy Agency’s Guide to White Label Partnerships: When (and Why) to Dive In
• Managing Multiple White Label Services: How to Stay Organized and Deliver Quality