Implementing Automation Without Losing the Human Touch

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Hello there!

I’m Elena from Communardo Products. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been reflecting on how automation is shaping our day-to-day work with Atlassian tools. In conversations with customers, partners, and community members, one theme continues to come up frequently: concerns about automation and its impact on the human side of collaboration.

That’s why I wanted to share a few thoughts and observations on how automation can support teams, scale processes, and reduce friction, without replacing the people, creativity, and judgment that make teams successful.

TL;DR – Key Takeaways

Automation in Jira and Confluence isn’t about replacing people, it’s about empowering them. When used thoughtfully, automation reduces cognitive load, eliminates repetitive tasks, and strengthens collaboration. In this article, we explore real-world stories of teams that scaled with automation without losing their culture, creativity, or human judgment. The takeaway: Automation should act as a collaborator, not a substitute, helping teams work smarter while keeping people at the center.

Scaling with Automation – The Human Way

Automation is rapidly transforming the way teams operate in the Atlassian ecosystem. But the organizations that see the biggest impact aren’t simply chasing efficiency. They’re investing in people. The real question facing modern teams is not whether to automate, but how to scale with automation in Jira and Confluence while preserving the human qualities that drive innovation, trust, and collaboration.

At Communardo Products, we’ve spent years helping teams strike this balance. And what we’ve learned is simple: when done right, automation doesn’t diminish the human experience; it amplifies it. Below, we share how organizations across industries have used automation to grow sustainably, work more creatively, and stay connected, without sacrificing the soul of their teamwork.

What Teams Told Us: The Biggest Opportunities for AI in Atlassian

In November 2025, we ran a short poll in the Atlassian Community to understand where teams believe AI can have the greatest impact in the Atlassian ecosystem. The answers revealed a clear pattern: people want automation to remove friction.

Here’s what the poll showed:

• Automating repetitive tasks: 30%
• Improving search/discovery of information: 20%
• Summarizing issues and pages: 20%
• Assisting with reporting & insights:10%
• Other use cases, not specified: 20%

These answers align closely with the stories we hear every day: teams want support with the time-consuming, mentally draining parts of work so they can focus on higher-value contributions.

The Myth of the “Fully Automated Team”

There’s a misconception that automation reduces the need for human involvement. But in Atlassian apps, automation doesn’t remove humans from workflows; it removes friction.

With automation, teams can:

• Remove bottlenecks: Slow, tedious tasks can run unattended.
• Scale operations: Technology-driven processes let teams scale beyond manual limits to support business growth.
• Increase productivity: Quick automation rules save hours, letting teams focus on higher-value tasks.

Real-World Story: How Canva Saved Hundreds of Hours with Jira Automation

Canva, one of the world’s fastest-growing design platforms, faced the same challenge many scaling teams encounter: their increasing volume of work brought an equally increasing load of manual oversight. Their engineers, product managers, and support teams were spending hours each week triaging issues, updating statuses, and coordinating across fast-moving development streams. As their workflow complexity grew, so did the administrative drag.

To address this, Canva invested in Jira automation to reduce repetitive administrative work, and the impact was significant.

According to Atlassian’s official customer story, Canva now saves over 150 hours every month through Jira automation alone. By automating routine actions, such as updating fields, managing workflows, and standardizing issue handling, teams dramatically reduced manual overhead. What previously required multiple touchpoints or human intervention began happening automatically in the background.

This freed teams to focus on higher-value work instead of low-value “Jira maintenance.” Developers gained more uninterrupted time for engineering work, product managers saw cleaner, more consistent data, and cross-team collaboration benefited from more accurate, timely updates.

The automation benefits extended beyond just time savings. Atlassian’s report highlights how teams experienced more clarity, fewer errors, and smoother communication, because consistency no longer depended on every individual remembering every process step. Automation created a reliable backbone for workflows, ensuring nothing slipped through the cracks as the company grew.

Implementing Automation Without Losing the Human Touch

Automation should support people, not overshadow them. The key is intentional design.

Start small and scale deliberately. Teach teams not just how automation works, but why it matters. Keep open feedback loops so rules evolve with the team’s needs. And always retain human judgment for strategic decisions where context, nuance, and empathy matter.

One product team we partnered with automated roadmap synchronization in Jira while keeping strategic prioritization in human-led meetings. Automation accelerated execution; humans elevated the outcomes.

The Human ROI of Automation in Atlassian

Organizations often measure automation by productivity metrics, but its actual value is human.

When cognitive load drops, people make clearer decisions. When administrative work shrinks, creativity expands. When information becomes reliable and easy to find, collaboration becomes effortless rather than exhausting.

That’s why forward-thinking teams track happiness, clarity, and focus alongside velocity or resolution rates. In modern organizations, the most significant competitive advantage remains people.

The Future: AI-Driven Automation as a Collaborator

As Rovo’s capabilities expand, the tool is moving toward a role that feels less like a feature and more like a silent collaborator.

Imagine Rovo proactively suggesting task priorities based on historical project patterns, or automatically updating project timelines as dependencies shift. Picture cross-module intelligence where Rovo, integrated chat, and document tools keep teams aligned without manual syncing.

This future isn’t about replacing people. It’s about enabling teams to operate with greater clarity, focus, and confidence than ever before.

Final Thought

The most successful organizations aren’t blindly automating everything; they’re automating intentionally, with people at the center. The goal isn’t a “fully automated team.” The goal is fully empowered.

And at Communardo Products, we’re committed to helping teams scale in ways that strengthen, not suppress, the human side of work.

I’d be very interested to hear how others in the community are navigating this balance. What’s working well for you, and where do you still see challenges?