Atlassian: Jira revamped and many new AI functions in the portfolio
To make Jira appealing to users outside of software teams, the tool has been given a new look and many AI functions.
(Image: Atlassian)
Atlassian presented a number of innovations at its in-house trade fair Team '24 Europe: After a four-month beta phase, the generative AI tool Rovo is generally available, there are also new LLM functions for developers, Atlassian Intelligence for various products and Jira has been given a new interface and new functions. Atlassian is particularly keen to simplify navigation here. With Focus, there is now a new product for managers who are wondering what their employees are actually doing all day. It allows goals, work, teams and funds to be mapped and tracked, making it easier to align these things with strategic priorities.
Jira and Rovo
Core features of the Jira update include customizable page navigation and AI-powered search. In addition, users can now determine what their work steps should be called – - not everything is automatically an issue anymore, but can of course still be called that. Users can now also create user-defined project templates that contain preconfigured workflows, automations and authorizations, for example. Furthermore, the Goals function is now an integral part of Jira and can be displayed as a list, timeline, calendar and issue view.
(Image:Â Atlassian)
Atlassian's AI tool Rovo is now also generally available and is designed to help users in particular to find their data distributed across various (SaaS) applications. The Rovo search connectors, which are available for Slack, MS Teams, SharePoint, Google Drive, Figma and GitHub at launch, are designed to do this; 80 more connectors are to be added by the end of the year. At the same time, a chatbot enables content to be retrieved from the data and AI agents should be able to be integrated into all common workflows. According to feedback in the Rovo beta, users can effectively save one to two hours of time as data and information can be found more quickly.
(Image:Â Atlassian)
AI for developers – and everyone else
There are new LLM functions especially for developers that are reminiscent of common programming assistants and are probably partly based on GitHub Copilot. In addition to analyzing code and suggesting improvements, Atlassian's tool will automatically generate code plans, code recommendations and pull requests based on task descriptions, requirements and the company context directly in Jira. An Atlassian survey in July of this year revealed that developers are not yet seeing the productivity boosts that management would like to see from AI tools.
Further AI functions are being added to Jira under the Atlassian Intelligence banner. For example, the tools will break down projects into individual work steps and then automatically create tickets. Jira Service Management groups projects in order to then suggest the right resources and finally create an incident report. The Help Center, MS Teams, mails and widgets also allow AI to be embedded for service management.
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Focus: monitoring employees effectively
In order to successfully measure the productivity gains of the new AI functions, Atlassian is also launching Focus, a product for corporate strategy and planning. Focus is aimed at managers and offers a central point of contact for keeping an eye on goals, projects and teams. Conveniently, users receive team or Slack alerts and AI summaries as soon as something changes or employees want to be spurred on. With just one click, the dashboard summarizes the current status and makes suggestions as to which screws can be tightened or where proactive measures may be necessary.
Further information can be found in Atlassian's blog posts on Jira, the AI functions and Focus.
(pst)
