Let's be honest: most of us learned about 20% of Jira and Confluence, found that it did what we needed, and never went looking for more. No shame in that! But Atlassian has been shipping a lot, and some of the best stuff is tucked into toolbars, menus, and "..." buttons that nobody clicks.
So grab a coffee. Here are my favorite hidden features, some AI and some good old-fashioned clicking, sorted by app.
Quick note before we start: most of the AI features need a paid Cloud plan (Standard, Premium or Enterprise) with Rovo turned on. Most Loom AI features need Loom Business + AI or Enterprise. A few are still in beta, so your mileage may vary.
🎥 Loom
- Let Loom take the meeting notes
Invite Loom to your video calls, and it'll write up a recap with action items. Even better, it can automatically drop the meeting notes into Confluence. No more "Wait, who said they'd do that?" on Monday morning. - Turn a video into a Jira bug, an SOP, or a doc
Record yourself walking through a process or a bug, then use Loom AI workflows to turn it into a text document, a message, or a bug report you can send straight to Jira. People have recorded 20-second videos and come back to a full step-by-step doc. It feels a bit like cheating! - Use Bug Report mode for bugs your devs can actually fix
Loom has a recording mode just for bugs. It captures device info plus console and network logs, then turns your video into a detailed bug report. That's the end of “Can't reproduce, works on my machine." - Edit your video by editing the transcript
Highlight a sentence in the transcript, delete it, and it's gone from the video too. Add automatic filler-word and silence removal, and you'll sound like you rehearsed (you didn't, we know! 
) - Record a video for an AI agent
Video Prompts is a recording mode that turns your screen recording into detailed instructions for AI agents like Rovo, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, or Claude. Show it once and let the agent run with it.
📋 Jira
- Break down an epic (or a story) with AI
Got an epic with a decent description? Let AI suggest the child work items. It reads the parent's summary and description, plus any existing children, so it won't just repeat what you've got. Accept the ones you like, and they get created and linked for you. It works for splitting stories into subtasks too. - Search in plain English
Not a JQL wizard? Just type "bugs assigned to me that were updated this week" and Rovo turns it into JQL. And if you are a JQL person, there's a JQL error fixer that cleans up typos and syntax mistakes. We've all forgotten a closing quote. - Summarize the 47-comment thread
Open a work item with a huge comment history and ask for a summary. You'll get the gist (status, key people, blockers, next steps) without scrolling for an hour. - Catch duplicates before they happen
As you type a new work item, Jira can show potential duplicates before you hit Create. It can also suggest values for fields like labels, components, and priority based on similar issues. Your backlog's future self says thanks. - Let Rovo set up the whole space
New in Jira's summer release: describe how your team works in plain language, or attach a Confluence page, a Loom, a deck, or an image, and Rovo builds a space with workflows, work types, views, and some suggested first work items. Much faster than an afternoon in project settings. - Assign work to an agent like a teammate
(admins and team leads, this one's for you!) Agents now show up in the assignee field, and you can @mention them in comments . On team-managed software boards, you can add an agent to a column, so any work item dragged into "Needs Release Notes" gets picked up automatically. You can also wire agents into automation rules with the "Use Rovo agent" action. - Bulk change: the feature that saves your whole afternoon
Not AI, but criminally underused. From your search results, you can bulk move, edit, transition, or label up to 1,000 work items at once. One tip: read the confirmation screen carefully. Bulk changes can't be undone, and "add label" sits right next to "replace all labels." Ask me how I know! 🤦🏻♀️
📝 Confluence
- Turn whiteboard sticky notes into Jira work items
Finished a brainstorm on a Confluence whiteboard? Select one sticky or a whole pile, choose Jira integration in the floating toolbar, then Create a Jira work item. Your retro ideas don't die on the board anymore. It works for Jira, Jira Service Management, and Jira Product Discovery. - Whiteboard power moves for Jira planning
Two more whiteboard tricks people miss:
* Smart sections: drag Jira work items into a section to update them in bulk (reassign, move to a sprint, etc.). The changes sync to Jira right away.
* Connector lines become real Jira links: draw a line between two work items, choose "blocks" or "is blocked by," and it updates the Linked issues field in Jira.
Bonus: if your team is moving off another tool, you can import boards from Miro, Mural, and FigJam. - Highlight text and turn it into a Jira work item
Reading a project plan and spot something that needs a ticket? Highlight the text, choose to create a Jira work item, and AI fills in the summary and description from the page. Want more? Use the AI menu to scan the whole page for action items and create up to 10 work items in one go. (Same idea works from Slack and Microsoft Teams threads, too.) - Last but not least, my newest favorite: the synced blocks macro
Write reusable content once in a synced block, copy it from the hover menu, and paste it on any destination page. Update the original, and all the copies are automatically updated! It even shows you a count of how many copies of the block you've got:
🤖 Rovo Extras (Bonus Round)
- Rovo browser extension:
Rovo’s browser extension allows you to easily access Search, Chat, Agents, and look up definitions while you work, from any web page. - Memory you can actually see:
Rovo now shows you what it has learned about you (like "prefers bullet-point summaries") and lets you edit it or turn it off. - Share a chat:
Worked something out with Rovo? Share the whole chat so your teammate gets the reasoning, not just the conclusion. Don't worry, it respects permissions. - Custom skills:
Tell Rovo "create a skill that generates a sprint summary from my board" and it'll ask a few questions, then save it as a reusable workflow.
That's my list! Now I want yours. What's the hidden feature that made you say, "Wait, it's been able to do that this whole time?!" Drop it in the comments 👇
