Close

AI Innovation Day

Embracing new technology can be challenging, especially when it’s as powerful as AI. Build your team’s confidence in AI with the AI Innovation Day Play, a focused day of learning and doing with AI.

People working together at the table
List icon
PREP TIME

60m

Stopwatch icon
Run TIME

2hr

Group icon
Persons

3-5

5-second summary

  • Learn how AI works.
  • Experiment with AI in your workflows.
  • Share your learnings with the team.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED
  • Video conferencing with screen sharing or meeting space
  • Preferred AI tools (i.e., Rovo)

How to run an AI Innovation Day

Embracing new technology can be challenging. Build your team’s confidence in AI with a day focused on learning and doing with AI.

What is an AI innovation day?

An AI innovation day is dedicated time for learning and practicing AI to enhance your team’s skills. Teams can improve their understanding of AI by learning how it operates, identifying practical use cases, and experimenting with various AI tools.

Why run an AI Innovation Day Play?

Working with a new technology can feel daunting, especially when it’s as complex as AI. Research has shown that your initial perception of a tool or technology affects your behavior toward it, which in turn impacts the results you'll achieve. A dedicated learning day can help your team feel more confident about getting started with AI and reaping the benefits of these tools.

When to use AI at work

GenAI tools can help capture valuable knowledge and strengthen the workforce – not replace it. AI can be used in many ways in the workplace, including:

  • Learning new skills and upskilling your current expertise
  • Automating routine tasks
  • Expediting workflows
  • Enhancing team collaboration

3 benefits of using AI at work

  1. Access knowledge faster: AI allows you to find information quicker and easier, without pulling teammates out of focus time to ask for information.
  2. Improved efficiency: Atlassian's Teamwork Lab recently found that teams consistently integrating AI into their workflows are 1.6 times more effective at achieving their goals and 1.9 times more likely to be effective collaborators.
  3. Increased ROI: People who collaborate with AI on a regular cadence see 2x the ROI compared to those who don’t. Additional research by the Teamwork Lab shows that organizations using AI for enhanced decision-making can realize an annual ROI of $129.4 million, while those using it for specific tasks only see $65.1 million—creating an opportunity cost of $64.3 million.

1. Prep the Play

Est. time: 60 MIN

Invite your team to an AI innovation day. For remote teams, schedule a meeting with a video conference link. For in-person teams, book a meeting space for the scheduled Play.

Next, ask your team to spend 30 - 60 minutes reading about AI in advance of the meeting. This will ensure that the team has a basic understanding of how AI models work and can build your team’s confidence in using them.

You can also create a communication channel (in Slack, for instance) for people to discuss and ask any questions they may have in advance of the AI Innovation Day.

Finally, ask your team to review their list of weekly tasks. Note any repetitive, time-consuming tasks—such as data entry, scheduling, and report generation—and bring them to the meeting.

2. Start the Play with a brainstorming meeting

Est. time: 30 MIN

Open up the meeting with a collaborative brainstorm with your team to collect and document the ideas team members would like to work on during the AI innovation day.

If you’re struggling to think of ideas, a good place to start is reviewing your weekly tasks list. Are there repetitive tasks on that list AI can help you be faster and more efficient with? Choose a few items to tackle during the day, noting that people may pair up or work individually, depending on their preferences.

3. Experiment with AI in your workflows

Est. time: 1-3 hrs

Teams or individuals can now break off from the main meeting and experiment with their preferred AI tools, such as Rovo. Here are a few examples of AI experiments from an Atlassian team’s AI innovation day:

  • Created a Rovo agent to suggest internal subject-matter experts for blog posts
  • Used AI to summarize email data and generate a report of top-performing content
  • Asked AI how to use AI to help edit an article using the Atlassian Style Guide
  • Created a presentation outline based on a few different Confluence pages
  • Drafted a knowledge-base article on how to use our brand guidelines for a freelancer

4. Come back together and share what you learned and discovered

Est. time: 30 min

Have your team gather together at the end of your AI innovation day to share what they’ve learned, show examples of how they’ve used AI at work, and ask questions of each other.

Follow-up

Continue to encourage your team to share how they are integrating AI into their workflows with more dedicated days for learning and open communication channels to keep sharing.

How to run an AI innovation day

5-SECOND SUMMARY
  • Learn how AI works
  • Experiment with AI in your workflows
  • Share your learnings with the team

1. Prep the Play 60 min

Invite your team to an AI innovation day. For remote teams, schedule a meeting with a video conference link. For in-person teams, book a meeting space for the scheduled Play.

Next, ask your team to spend 30 - 60 minutes reading about AI in advance of the meeting. This will ensure that the team has a basic understanding of how AI models work and can build your team’s confidence in using them.

You can also create a communication channel (in Slack, for instance) for people to discuss and ask any questions they may have in advance of the AI Innovation Day.

Finally, ask your team to review their list of weekly tasks. Note any repetitive, time-consuming tasks—such as data entry, scheduling, and report generation—and bring them to the meeting.

Curious how we created these vital signs?

First, we ran organization-wide surveys to gather data. Then, we applied the principles of outcome-driven innovation from Anthony Ulwick’s book, What Customers Want, to give each vital sign an opportunity score.

3. Experiment with AI in your workflows 1-3 Hours

Teams or individuals can now break off from the main meeting and experiment with their preferred AI tools, such as Rovo. Here are a few examples of AI experiments from an Atlassian team’s AI innovation day:

  • Created a Rovo agent to suggest internal subject-matter experts for blog posts
  • Used AI to summarize email data and generate a report of top-performing content
  • Asked AI how to use AI to help edit an article using the Atlassian Style Guide
  • Created a presentation outline based on a few different Confluence pages
  • Drafted a knowledge-base article on how to use our brand guidelines for a freelancer

Tip: MAP OUT YOUR DATA

If it’s helpful to visualize each of your vital signs relative to the others, you can plot your results on a scatter plot.

When to remove a vital sign

If average satisfaction is higher than average importance, the vital sign is probably not very important to your team, or your team is satisfied with it already. In the future, you can replace the vital sign with one you want to watch more closely.

Group of question marks

Still have questions?

Start a conversation with other Atlassian Team Playbook users, get support, or provide feedback.

Other plays you may like
Thumbnail
Meetings

Weekly Team Updates

Share how things are going—without scheduling another meeting.

Book illo
Meetings

Page-Led Meetings

Better meetings start with a page that outlines the purpose, expected outcomes, and key discussion points.

Book illo
Communication

User Manual

Help your teammates understand how best to work with you.

Thumbnail
Debrief

Retrospective

Provide a safe space to discuss what worked and what didn’t.

Stay up to date

Get the latest Plays and work life advice when you sign up for our newsletter.

Thanks!