In order to meet the requirements such as fast response speed, strong anti-disturbance capability and strong robustness of permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM), a new group intelligent optimization algorithm, grasshopper optimization algorithm (GOA), is applied to the optimization of traditional PI controller’s parameters. The superiority of the GOA compared with other optimization algorithms under this controller is verified. For further optimizing the rotational speed response effect, a fuzzy PI controller is designed based on the original PI controller, and the GOA is used to optimize the quantization factors and scale factors of the fuzzy logic controller. The simulation results show that the rotation speed response under the fuzzy PI controller based on the GOA has similar dynamic performance indexes to the PI controller based on GOA, but the robustness is clearly improved.