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#91 - What’s New in Confluence Whiteboards
Patricia Modispacher
In this newsletter, we’ll give you an overview of the key feature updates Confluence whiteboards received over the summer, with AI leading the way.
A lot has changed with Confluence whiteboards over the summer. Missed the updates? No problem, we’ll walk you through the hottest new features.
Smart Create with AI
The latest addition to Confluence whiteboards is the Smart Create button. Atlassian hasn’t shared details yet, but we always spot new buttons, especially when they involve AI.
Smart Create is currently in beta, offering two options – Brainstorming and Diagram – to help you jumpstart ideas and visuals. We tried it out by asking it to help us plan our next Team Week for 50 people in Stuttgart, Germany, with a mix of team-building activities and training sessions. The results? Pretty impressive for a first draft.
We found it works best for auditing what’s already there and visualizing it quickly. Fresh idea generation is still a bit limited, but since it’s in beta, we’re optimistic it will evolve.
See it in action in our latest YouTube Short.
Import Miro and Mural Boards into Confluence
Another big update: you can now bulk import Miro boards into Confluence (available on Enterprise and Premium plans). Free and Standard users can still import boards, but only one at a time.
Mural files are supported too, making it simple to bring your boards into Confluence. That means fewer tools, lower costs, and most importantly: one single source of truth for brainstorming, planning, and documentation.
Seek and Ye Shall Find
One update that’s easy to miss, but impossible not to love: integrated search. After a workshop, a whiteboard can be packed with sticky notes and shapes. You might remember an idea, but finding it again used to mean endless scrolling.
Now, integrated search takes you straight to the card you need. You can search by exact match or case sensitivity – handy for names, tags, and acronyms. It’s a big step up from the old Cmd+F browser search, which only scanned what was visible on your screen.
Catch Up on the Confluence Whiteboards Livestream
There’s been so much happening with Confluence whiteboards that we spent a full hour diving into it.
Emily Ditchfield, Product Manager for Confluence whiteboards, walked us through the latest features, gave a sneak peek at what’s coming next, and answered your questions live.
The strength of the new Smart Create feature is how well it works with existing content. Add a Confluence page link to your prompt, and it can turn child pages into a mind map in no time.
It’s not great at creating content from scratch, but it knows its limits and instead helps you build a solid template to start with. Each request adds a new element to your whiteboard, it can’t edit existing content, though it can use it as context.
Since the feature is still in beta, it should improve before the full release.
Steffen develops the content strategy, content formats, and the websites of K15t.
I’ll use it to kick off whiteboards quickly, and I hope Atlassian expands it beyond brainstorming and mind mapping, ideally even letting us edit existing content. Imagine chatting with Rovo while it handles adding, moving, and deleting content for you.
Atlassian Announces The End of Life of Data Center
We kind of all saw this coming… and now it’s official: Atlassian has announced the end of life for Confluence Data Center, with support ending March 2029. This follows the earlier retirement of Confluence Server, and means that Atlassian will stop developing and supporting the Data Center environment after March 2029. So, if your team is running on Confluence Data Center today, this directly affects you.
Wait! How do I know if I’m using Confluence Data Center?
Here’s a quick way to check:
If your Confluence URL contains “atlassian.net,” you’re already on Cloud!
If not, you may be on Data Center or using a custom domain. To be sure, scroll down to the footer of any Confluence page. If it says Confluence Data Center along with a version number, you’ve got your answer.
Key phases and dates
Don’t worry, Atlassian isn’t pulling the plug on Confluence Data Center overnight. The transition will happen step-by-step, with plenty of time to prepare. Here are the key dates to keep in mind:
March 30, 2026: Sales of new Data Center subscriptions and Marketplace apps will end for new customers.
March 30, 2028: Last date for existing customers to purchase new Data Center licenses, Marketplace apps, and license expansions.
March 28, 2029: Data Center end of life. All Data Center licenses and associated Marketplace app licenses will expire and become read-only.
Since we at K15t also build apps for Data Center, this affects us directly. Read our statement to learn what this means to us and for our customers.
Multi-Select Resizing for Whiteboards
Since June, you can resize multiple sticky notes, shapes, or images at the same time in Confluence whiteboards. It’s a small update, but it makes tidying up a cluttered board much faster and less fiddly. It’s not a game-changer, but it’s one of those quality-of-life improvements that you’ll quickly get used to and miss if it were gone.
AI-Powered Jira Descriptions with Confluence
Atlassian also rolled out the ability to enrich Jira work item descriptions by pasting a Confluence or Loom link. AI then pulls in the key context and structures it into a clear description with requirements, context, and next steps. This removes a lot of manual copy-paste and helps teams keep Jira aligned with the discussions and documentation they already have. For anyone juggling between tools, this is a real step forward in collaboration and consistency.
