Atlassian says AI time savings about ‘focused effort’, not working less

Atlassian, founded by Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes, has released an advanced AI product that saves hours a week by performing menial tasks.

Time saved using artificial intelligence tools should be viewed as creating more space for “focused effort” rather than working less, Atlassian’s head of AI says.

Employees who are using AI-powered assistants, such as Microsoft’s Copilot, say they are saving about 20 hours a month on average. But a “tug of war” has erupted on how best to share that benefit.

Managers want AI to help lift flatlining productivity, while staff are seeking more work/life balance.

Atlassian head of AI Sherif Mansour said the argument is flawed. “In our view, it’s less about “giving time back” and more about more focused effort,” Mr Mansour told The Australian.

“Teams may be clocking the same number of hours, but they are spending it on more important things. It’s about investing our precious time rather than spending it.”

Tension is rising within some Australian workplaces as more companies such as Amazon, Tabcorp, Flight Centre and the NSW government, seek to end pandemic-era remote working, and have ordered employees back to the office in an effort to improve culture, collaboration and output.

Atlassian head of AI Sherif Mansour.

Atlassian, which makes software that underpins flexible and distributed working, has criticised return-to-office mandates, saying they do nothing to stop employees from “drowning” and burning out, which risks setting back productivity further.

Mr Mansour said AI tools can help ease the burden and reduce “cognitive load”, freeing staff up to become more creative.

Atlassian unveiled its advanced AI tool – dubbed Rovo – at Las Vegas in May, declaring it would turbocharge efficiency by allowing companies to draw insights from “piles of raw data scattered across their systems”, turning “information into action in a heartbeat”.

The Australian-founded software giant is seeking to differentiate itself from Microsoft and Google in the AI race by harnessing the technology to make teams, rather than individual employees, more productive and Rovo is the latest addition to what the company calls “Atlassian intelligence”.

Mr Mansour said since the start of the year usage of “Atlassian intelligence” had increased ten-fold across 70,000 customers, who had reported a significant lift in output.

TBC Bank, for example, said it has reported time savings of 40 per cent and increased efficiency by 25 per cent. It has used Atlassian Intelligence to automate task creation and summarise content, which Mr Mansour said enabled the bank’s staff to focus more on “high-impact work”, better allocate resources, and accelerate project delivery.

“AI is transformative because it is such a profound timesaving tool. Our state of teams research found that leaders who use AI regularly have 19 per cent more time to collaborate and 13 per cent more time each day to focus on their priorities,” he said.

“Our customers are spending the time saved using Rovo and Atlassian Intelligence on more critical tasks, improving operational efficiency, and accelerating project delivery. They tell us that they use AI from Atlassian to make workflows more efficient, reduce cognitive load, stay focused and in the flow of work, and build smarter processes – all of which means they have more time to spend on high-value work like improvements and innovation.”

Mr Mansour said Rovo was expected to bolster output further as it moved from a beta program to general availability this month.

About 100 Atlassian customers participated in Rovo’s beta program, and found it saved staff one to two hours a week on average.

“Though it’s still early days, Rovo is already helping our beta customers find information across all their SaaS (software as a service) apps, learn and iterate on knowledge as they work, and act faster with AI agents,” Mr Mansour said.

“Nearly 75 per cent of surveyed beta users say Rovo helps them get work done faster, nearly 80 per cent say Rovo helps them find the right information at the right time, and nearly 60 per cent say Rovo helps them get started on a new project faster.”

Like Microsoft’s Copilot, Rovo can generate content such as producing social media posts and summarising corporate reports.

But Atlassian co-chief executive Mike Cannon-Brookes said Rovo was different to Microsoft’s and Google’s products and that it was more than a “souped-up version of chatbots”.

Rovo pulls data from Atlassian’s project management software, including Jira, Confluence and Trello, and a company’s HR system and other software such as Microsoft SharePoint, Google Workspaces and Slack.

This creates what Mr Cannon-Brookes called a “teamwork graph”, which he said was Rovo’s “secret sauce”, “unlocking a comprehensive view of your organisation’s goals, knowledge, teams, and work”.

“Rovo is one of the most ambitious and important products we’ve ever built. I’m thrilled we can get it into our customers’ hands just five months after we first announced it in Las Vegas,” Mr Cannon-Brookes told The Australian.

“Whether you’re a dev team building the next big thing, a marketing team creating your next big campaign, or a service agent helping your customers solve a really big problem, AI is going to transform the way your work gets done. It’s a huge opportunity for us, and most importantly, for our customers.”