Atlassian makes its Rovo AI free, for now, to reduce 'friction' holding you back from agentic nirvana

Apparently it's time to assume you will work with AI and must 'move from doing the thing to being the architect of the thing'

Atlassian has decided to make its Rovo AI suite free but will in future introduce fees for use beyond a yet-to-be-determined threshold.

Rovo is a generative AI suite that scours users' data, and allows them to search it with a conversational interface, and build agents that can act autonomously.

At its Team '25 conference in Las Vegas this week, Atlassian added a tool called "Rovo Studio" that allows creation of agents and definition of AI-driven automation – with or without code. The company also added many connectors to Rovo so it can ingest data from over 50 third-party apps.

Move from doing the thing to being the architect of the thing

Sherif Mansour, Atlassian's head of AI, outlined a scenario in which a request to update code in a project is logged in Atlassian's Jira issue-tracking tool. Today, those tickets are processed manually. Using Rovo, Mansour envisions an agent "reading" the ticket, analyzing the spec it contains, then writing a proposal for how to make the requested changes.

That proposal is sent to a human for approval.

He suggested another agent be made aware of a company's brand guidelines and automatically apply them to documents.

Mansour told The Register Atlassian already has a million users of its AI, but admitted the company also feels "friction" is holding others back from giving it a try. One source of friction is folk who are yet to implement AI. Price appears to be another source, as despite Rovo gaining its new Studio app and more connectors, Atlassian is dropping its $20/user/month cost to $0.

"We can monetize it with consumption-based pricing over time," he told The Register.

Mansour also thinks that over time attitudes to AI's role in the workplace must change.

"The human skill that needs to change is to move from doing the thing to being the architect of the thing," he said. That means assuming we will all work alongside "nonhuman teammates."

"We need to learn how to articulate how and what you want AI to do," he told The Register.

The Register put it to Mansour that enterprise software buyers have seen this movie before and it doesn't end well because products that start out free become increasingly expensive, and once users are locked in price hikes accelerate and innovation slows.

Mansour said users should judge Atlassian on its record of offering generous free tiers for its products, and paid tiers that are hard to max out.

"Find me a customer that says I use Jira and I hit my storage limit," he challenged, before asserting: "That customer does not exist."

Other news from Atlassian's gabfest includes the launch of a customer service management application, and a Government Cloud. The Australian collaborationware vendor also announced an "Isolated Cloud" it described as a "virtual private cloud option for organizations that need to keep highly sensitive data in a dedicated environment." It will become available in 2026.

The company has also created a pair of software "Collections," one combining Atlassian's Focus and Jira Align products, plus a new workforce planning app called "Talent," into a "Strategy Collection." The "Teamwork Collection" combines Jira, Confluence, Loom and Rovo Agents. The Register understands Atlassian hasn't built extra integrations between the components of the Collections, but instead suggests them because they include all the tools needed to address the functions their names suggests. ®