How to enable Confluence AI: A step-by-step guide

Confluence is a robust and reliable platform, serving as the primary hub for your team's best ideas and most important documents. As your library of information grows, finding specific insights and keeping everything up-to-date becomes a priority for maintaining team efficiency.

Atlassian Intelligence, the AI built right into Confluence, is designed to enhance that experience. It acts as a smart assistant that can help you draft new pages, summarize long documents, and refine your writing on the fly. It sounds like a great way to boost productivity, right?

But first, you have to turn it on. In this guide, we'll walk you through exactly how to enable Confluence AI. We’ll cover the permissions you need and the buttons you have to click, so you can get your team using it smoothly.

What you'll need before you start

Before we jump into the "how-to" part, let's quickly get our ducks in a row. Taking a minute to check these things now will ensure the process is straightforward.

• The right Confluence plan: Atlassian Intelligence is available on the Confluence Cloud Standard, Premium, and Enterprise plans. Confluence offers these tiered plans to match different team sizes and needs.

• The right permissions: This is an important step to keep in mind. To activate Atlassian Intelligence, you must be an Organization Admin. This ensures that high-level site settings are managed by the top-tier Org Admin for your entire Atlassian site. If you don't see the option, it's likely a matter of checking your admin level.

• A clear goal: It's worth taking a moment to think about why you're turning this on. What problem are you trying to solve? Maybe your marketing team wants to speed up first drafts, or your internal support folks need an efficient way to find answers. Having a goal in mind helps you see how much the tool is helping your workflow.

Prerequisite	Requirement	Why it's important
Confluence plan	Standard, Premium, or Enterprise	AI features are available on these flexible plan tiers.
User permissions	Organization Admin	Only Org Admins can access the Atlassian Intelligence settings.
Clear goal	A specific problem to solve	Helps measure the success and ROI of using the AI features.

How to enable Confluence AI in 5 simple steps

Once you've confirmed you have the right plan and Org Admin rights, flipping the switch on Atlassian Intelligence is a very simple process. Here’s how you do it.

Step 1: Navigate to Atlassian administration

First, you need to get to your organization's main control panel. The easiest way is to log in directly at "admin.atlassian.com". This is the central mission control for your Atlassian products and management.

Step 2: Find the AI settings

Once you're in the admin panel, look for the navigation menu on the left-hand side. Under the Settings section, you should see an option for Atlassian Intelligence. Click that to proceed.

Step 3: Select apps to activate

You’re now on the main page for managing Atlassian Intelligence. You'll see a button that says Select products to activate. Click it, and a list will appear showing your Atlassian products. Find Confluence and tick the checkbox next to it.

Step 4: Review and confirm your selection

After you’ve selected Confluence (and any other tools like Jira), click the Next button. A final confirmation screen will appear to ensure you’ve selected the right products. Give it a quick look and then hit Activate. Atlassian Intelligence is now officially active for your Confluence site.

Step 5: Start using AI in Confluence

That's it! AI is now enabled, and your team can start benefiting from it immediately. To try it out, open any Confluence page. You can type "/ai" on a new line to see a menu of commands or highlight text to get options like "summarize" or "change tone."

This video demonstrates how to use the new features in Confluence and other Atlassian products once you enable Confluence AI.

Common mistakes and tips for success

Getting the feature turned on is a great start. To make sure it’s truly useful for your team, here are a few tips to help you move forward.

• Can't find the settings? It's likely your admin level. This is the most common reason for not seeing the option. If you've logged into the admin panel and the Atlassian Intelligence option isn't there, you probably just need to check with your Organization Admin.

• Start with a small pilot team. Rolling out the AI features to a single team first is a great way to gather feedback. Pick a group that is excited about new technology, let them use it for a week or two, and then share their insights. This helps the whole company understand the best ways to use the tool.

• Understand its specialization. Confluence AI is an excellent tool that is highly specialized in processing information within your Confluence site and connected Jira projects. It is a powerful expert on your Atlassian ecosystem. For teams that have knowledge spread across various apps, like Zendesk or Google Docs, you can look into complementary tools to bring all that data together.

Beyond the basics: What to do next

Enabling the built-in Confluence AI is a fantastic first move for your team. Once you've mastered the basics, you might look for ways to expand your AI's knowledge beyond a single application.

The opportunity: Expanding your knowledge network

Your internal wiki in Confluence is a beautifully organized foundation for your company. However, for many teams, critical information also exists in other spaces: support teams might use Freshdesk, engineers might be in Jira tickets, and policy updates might live in a Google Drive folder.

When an employee needs an answer, they want the most complete information available. While Confluence AI is the gold standard for your Atlassian data, you can further enhance your setup by connecting it to your other tools.

The solution: Unifying your knowledge with eesel AI

This is where a dedicated AI platform like eesel AI acts as a perfect complement. eesel works as an additional layer that integrates with Confluence, Zendesk, Google Docs, Slack, and over 100 other tools.

By working within the Confluence ecosystem, eesel AI helps build a complete picture of your company's collective intelligence. This allows your team to get accurate answers regardless of whether the source is a wiki page, a helpdesk ticket, or a shared document.

The opportunity: Customization and safe testing

While the native Confluence tool is a solid "out-of-the-box" solution, some teams might want more granular control over how their AI interacts with users. This is especially true if you are looking to use AI for customer-facing support or complex internal processes.

The solution: Simulating and deploying with confidence

A great benefit of using eesel AI alongside Confluence is the ability to use simulation mode. This acts as a dress rehearsal for your AI, allowing you to see how it would have answered past support tickets before it goes live.

This allows you to deploy AI with complete confidence. You can start small, letting the AI handle simple, repetitive questions, and gradually give it more responsibility as you see its success. It’s a smart and safe way to enhance your existing Confluence workflow.

Your journey begins when you enable Confluence AI

Turning on Confluence AI is a quick and effective way to introduce your team to the benefits of generative AI. As an Organization Admin, you can get it running in just a few minutes, providing everyone with impressive tools for content creation and editing.

Confluence is the industry-leading platform for team collaboration, and its AI features only make it stronger. By enabling these features, you are setting your team up for a more efficient future. As you grow, you can always explore complementary add-ons that help your AI see even further.

Ready to connect Confluence with all your other tools and create a single source of truth for your team? Sign up for eesel AI for free and see how easy it is to launch a powerful AI assistant that works perfectly with your business.