If your company uses Jira or Confluence, today is not a normal Monday in the admin panel.
Atlassian’s updated data-contribution rules take effect on August 17, 2026. The company can now use eligible metadata and in-app data to improve apps and AI experiences for all customers, according to the settings applied to each Atlassian organization.
Free and Standard Atlassian organizations can begin contributing eligible in-app data by default from August 17 unless an organization admin changes the setting.
UAE SMEs using Jira, Confluence, Jira Service Management, Rovo, or connected Atlassian platform apps.
Teams can choose contribution where they are comfortable while keeping stronger restrictions around sensitive spaces and organizational data
Defaults vary by the highest active plan and some regulated, government, or special compliance organizations are excluded or see different settings.
Atlassian says the rules begin applying from August 17 and will expand to additional apps as contribution settings become available.
Open Atlassian Administration, go to Security, then Data contribution, and confirm the setting for every organization you manage.
Admins who review the setting before sensitive project, customer, legal, or internal work becomes eligible for contribution.
Organization admins can manage in-app contribution on all plans; metadata opt-out is available on Enterprise, subject to exclusions and special compliance configurations.
Your organization-level setting, highest active plan, newly added apps or connectors, and future notices expanding eligible data.
The part UAE SMEs should check is the default. On Free and Standard plans, metadata contribution is on and in-app data contribution is on by default. Premium and Enterprise start with in-app data contribution off. This is an admin setting, not the same thing as simply turning an AI feature on or off.
What Changed Today
Atlassian says it already used metadata and in-app data to improve an individual customer’s experience. From August 17, eligible contributed data can also be used to improve apps and experiences for all customers.
Initially, the settings apply to Jira, Confluence, and Jira Service Management, including data in platform apps such as Rovo, Home, Teams, Projects, Assets, Goals, Analytics, and Administration. Certain Teamwork Graph connectors are also included.
Atlassian says it will not use metadata or in-app data from apps where data-contribution settings are not yet available, such as Loom or Bitbucket. This is a narrower change than saying every Atlassian product suddenly contributes everything. The AI Did Not Escape. The Sandbox Failed.
The Default Depends on Your Plan
The highest active plan in each Atlassian organization sets the default. Free and Standard start with metadata contributed and in-app data on. Premium starts with metadata contributed and in-app data off.
Enterprise starts with metadata on and in-app data off, but Enterprise admins can also turn metadata contribution off. Free, Standard, and Premium customers cannot opt out of metadata contribution under the standard settings.
Trials count when Atlassian determines the highest active plan. If you run several Atlassian organizations, each organization has its own setting, so checking one admin screen does not settle the others.
Metadata and In-App Data Are Different
This distinction is easy to miss. Atlassian describes metadata as characteristics about content and common insights, while in-app data can include the actual work content inside supported apps.
The company says contributed metadata is de-identified and aggregated before being used to improve products. It also says it applies privacy-preserving measures to contributed data.
That does not make the admin decision meaningless. A company can reasonably decide that some operational content should not contribute to cross-customer improvement even when the vendor applies safeguards.
This Is Not the Same as Turning AI On
An SME can enable an AI assistant for its own users and still have a separate question about whether eligible organizational data contributes to product improvement across customers.
Treat those as two governance decisions. One asks which employees can use AI. The other asks what data the vendor may use under its contribution program.
Our model-choice guide, The Best AI Model May Be the Wrong Business Choice, makes the same broader point: AI procurement is not one toggle. Model capability, data handling, permissions, cost, and operational controls are separate decisions.
The Five-Minute Admin Check
Go to Atlassian Administration, open Security, then Data contribution. Check which organization you are in before changing anything.
Confirm the highest active plan. Review metadata contribution. Review in-app data contribution. If you manage more than one organization, repeat the check for each one.
Then document the decision. If a future employee asks why contribution is on or off, the answer should be a policy decision, not ‘that was the default.’ The same discipline applies to delegated authority, as we explain in Your AI Agent Is Getting a Wallet.
Who May Be Excluded
Atlassian says organizations using Customer Managed Keys or Bring Your Own Key, Atlassian Government Cloud, Atlassian Isolated Cloud, configured HIPAA compliance, or government-customer arrangements are excluded from standard data contribution.
Some organizations can therefore see settings that differ from the public default table. The admin console is the source of truth for your organization.
For ordinary UAE SMEs without those configurations, August 17 is a good trigger to look. The setting can be changed later, but the better time to decide is before contributed data starts flowing under a default you never reviewed.
Sources
• Atlassian Support: Default data-contribution settings and August 17 effective date – https://support.atlassian.com/security-and-access-policies/docs/data-contribution-settings/
• Atlassian Trust: Data contribution program, timeline, data types, and plan defaults – https://www.atlassian.com/trust/ai/data-contribution
• Atlassian: Data contribution FAQs, exclusions, and admin path – https://www.atlassian.com/trust/ai/data-contribution/faqs
• Atlassian Support: How to include or exclude in-app data – https://support.atlassian.com/security-and-access-policies/docs/include-or-exclude-in-app-data/
Robius.news — Dubai, UAE — 2026 | Built to be first. Built to be trusted.
