Sarah Halstead ChPP FAPM

Services Director and Managing Consultant at AtkinsRéalis

Sarah Halstead ChPP FAPM is a Services Director and Managing Consultant at AtkinsRéalis, specialising in PMO, portfolio management, transformation delivery, and business change within complex government and regulated environments.

A Chartered Project Professional (ChPP) and Fellow of the Association for Project Management (FAPM), Sarah is passionate about advancing the project profession through capability leadership, professional development, and innovation. With extensive experience leading major programmes and delivery teams, she combines practical delivery expertise with strategic insight. One of her current focus areas is the application of artificial intelligence in project delivery, exploring how AI can enhance PMO effectiveness, improve decision-making, and help organisations deliver better outcomes while maintaining robust governance and oversight.

Session: Using AI in PMO responsibly

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly becoming part of the PMO toolkit, helping teams accelerate reporting, analyse project data, improve assurance activities and generate insights at unprecedented speed. However, as organisations move beyond experimentation, PMOs face a broader challenge than simply adopting AI: ensuring it is used sustainably, responsibly and with appropriate governance.

This session explores the PMO's role in enabling responsible AI adoption. Through practical demonstrations and real-world examples, attendees will see how effective prompt engineering can improve the quality of outputs while reducing unnecessary AI interactions, helping teams achieve better results with less effort. Using prompts for activities such as reporting, RAID management, planning, assurance and portfolio analysis, the session will show how PMOs can move from ad hoc use of AI to repeatable, value-driven practices.

The presentation will also share insights from an AtkinsRéalis Early Careers sustainability challenge, which explored approaches to understanding and assessing the carbon impact of AI usage. As organisations increasingly embed AI into everyday processes, PMOs have an important role in considering not only productivity benefits but also environmental impacts, ensuring that AI is applied where it delivers genuine value.

Alongside sustainability, the session will examine the governance responsibilities associated with AI adoption. Attendees will explore how PMOs can help establish appropriate controls, manage risks, ensure transparency of AI-generated outputs, maintain accountability for decisions, and promote the safe and ethical use of AI across programmes and portfolios.

Rather than viewing AI solely as a technology opportunity, this session positions the PMO as a critical enabler of responsible innovation—balancing productivity, sustainability, governance and business value. Attendees will leave with practical prompts, examples of effective PMO applications, and a framework for adopting AI in a way that is efficient, accountable and environmentally conscious.