Let’s get AI-ligned

TOGETHER WITH

Teamwork makes the dream work. And AI can do a lot to help. Atlassian’s got the research on how AI can help you achieve team-wide success, with proven ways to make AI work with your team. Turn chaos into collaboration.

Everyone’s using AI. It’s writing emails, taking meeting notes, and even helping you monitor all the data (read: system logs) you have to keep your eye on. It’s helping you improve your productivity and work way faster than before. So what’s the problem?

While you might be getting tasks done faster, ‌you’re somehow still drowning in to-dos and feeling siloed from other people on your team. Yep, AI might help you work faster, but it’s not leading to success for your organization at large.

Atlassian’s Teamwork Lab tapped the brains of 12,000 knowledge workers across the US, the UK, Australia, India, Germany, and France to ask how they use AI at work. The organizations that see the biggest benefit from AI? They do three big things differently.

Let’s look at the three ways you can use AI to turn solo scores into team-wide wins.

Build a solid base

AI’s got a lot of potential, but it’s currently flying blind. That’s probably why a whopping 79% of knowledge workers say they’d use AI more if it could access the right data and information, according to Atlassian. So you have to dig that info out from your email threads, your outdated decks, and all the corners of your brain.

Once you’ve gathered that knowledge, it’s time to share. Share docs, whiteboards, meeting notes, and all sorts of other information with AI to give it something to work with. After you make the context of your info dump clear, AI can really start to pull its weight. Answer the big four: who, what, when, and why?

The most important part of creating a solid knowledge base for AI to tap into is to make knowledge-sharing a team sport. Create shared goals, maintain consistent transparency, and communicate in public channels whenever possible. This method of knowledge-sharing keeps everyone in the loop, from key stakeholders to, well, AI.

Systems that don’t suck

Okay, so you have a whole bunch of information for AI to work with. What now? It’s time to set up the right framework so AI knows exactly where your teams should be heading. With clear goals, AI can offer smarter suggestions, catch duplicate work, and help keep your teams on the same page.

As you set up your framework, don’t forget to knock down the silos in your organization. If your analytics are on one platform but your communication is on another—and your project management is on yet another—well, no wonder AI gets confused. When you connect all your tools, you give AI a clearer picture of your work and organization, which helps it help you. Think: spotting trends, flagging roadblocks, and nudging team members in the right direction.

AI can help only as much as you and your teams let it, though. So to encourage people to use AI, you need to make the rules clear. Set up clear policies and guidelines. And don’t be too eager to lay down the law when someone makes a li’l mistake. If lots of employees make the same mistake, it’s probably a sign your guidelines need work, not your team.

Add AI to the org chart

Okay, not literally, but acting like AI is on your org chart by weaving it into your workflows goes a long way toward using AI to see success in your business. After all, only 51% of execs and 44% of teams use AI daily, according to Atlassian.

Start by introducing your new coworker, AI, to your teams. Let them get to know AI well, and experiment early and often. And maybe even get a little messy with it. That’s how AI learns best—not from formal training videos at 2x speed but from small, scrappy experiments.

“What if we tried this?” is probably the best question you can ask when it comes to using AI to its full potential. So have your teams try anything and everything, and let them share what they learn. Atlassian found that knowledge workers who have seen their manager model AI are 4x more likely to also use AI and 3x more likely to collaborate with it strategically.

AI can be the perfect teammate, but you need to actually treat it like it’s part of the team first.

More than just a productivity hack

AI can do way more for your org if you let it. Its real value isn’t in ramping up individual productivity but in streamlining your whole team’s workflow. Atlassian’s research shows that using AI effectively for your entire organization boils down to three main steps: Build a solid foundation, connect it to your tools and processes, and treat it like a real teammate. That’s how you turn AI into your team’s secret weapon.