Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes: AI agents need a name tag—and a human to be accountable for their actions

Atlassian cofounder and CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes says workplace users, not AI systems, must remain accountable for actions taken through AI agents. On October 6, Atlassian introduced the Agentic Multiplayer Protocol, a control plane intended to make AI agents visible and governed members of work teams across its platforms. The system assigns agents distinct profiles and owner attribution, and agent edits are meant to appear in document histories like edits by human colleagues. Cannon-Brookes said the model is designed to prevent “the AI did it” from becoming an excuse. Cannon-Brookes said workplace AI requires controls for permissions, security and compliance because agents can use privileged company information to create content that could expose internal data. He also said AI interfaces remain difficult for many users to operate effectively. Atlassian launched its Rovo AI assistant in 2024 to connect people, projects, code and company knowledge across Atlassian and external services, including Figma, Codex and Claude. The Sydney-based company reported $1.8 billion in revenue for the quarter ended June 30, above Reuters’ cited analyst estimate of $1.7 billion. Atlassian cut about 1,600 jobs, or 10% of its workforce, in March as it shifted toward AI and enterprise sales.