To determine if an AI solution is appropriate for an upcoming project, the project manager...

The best answer is D. Potential non-cognitive alternatives . In PMI-CPMAI, the early business assessment is not just about deciding whether AI can be used, but whether AI should be used at all for the problem. Under Identify Business Needs and Solutions , PMI’s official exam content outline explicitly states that initial AI feasibility includes comparing AI approaches against traditional solution alternatives . That means the project manager should first determine whether a simpler, rules-based, workflow, reporting, or conventional software solution could solve the problem without introducing unnecessary AI complexity, risk, cost, or governance burden.

This also aligns with your uploaded CPMAI-aligned playbook, which emphasizes that teams should avoid applying AI automatically and should choose governance and solution rigor proportionate to the actual need and risk. The playbook repeatedly stresses that the right decision starts with the business problem and whether AI is truly the appropriate approach, rather than assuming an AI solution by default.

Why the others are weaker: business objectives matter, cost matters, and interpretability may matter later, but the key question for deciding whether a cognitive approach is appropriate is whether viable non-cognitive alternatives already exist. That is the clearest PMI-CPMAI-aligned choice.