AI Work Item Assistant in Azure DevOps Boards

Supercharge your Azure DevOps experience with the AI Work Item Assistant—your intelligent partner for creating, refining, and understanding work items faster and with higher quality. Powered by Azure OpenAI, this extension transforms the way teams work in Azure Boards, making backlog management, requirement definition, and project tracking seamless and efficient.

What makes AI Work Item Assistant stand out?

• Instant Work Item Generation
• Smart Refinement
• Automated Child Item Creation
• Actionable Insights
• Seamless Integration
• Context-Aware Intelligence
• Enterprise-Grade Controls

Ready to transform your Azure DevOps Boards? Install AI Work Item Assistant today and experience the future of work item management.

Key Capabilities

• Instant Work Item Generation: Turn ideas, feedback, or problem statements into structured work items with suggested titles, descriptions, and acceptance criteria—no manual entry required.

• Smart Refinement: Effortlessly improve existing work items field-by-field using guided AI prompts and safe previews, ensuring clarity and completeness.

• Automated Child Item Creation: Generate recommended child items for Features or User Stories in a single click, streamlining planning and execution.

• Actionable Insights: Ask natural-language questions about any work item to summarize discussions, highlight decisions and risks, and track progress right inside Azure Boards.

• Seamless Integration: Works natively with your Azure DevOps environment, so you never have to leave your boards to unlock the power of AI.

• Context-Aware Intelligence: (Optional) Enrich AI responses with project context from wikis, documents, and more, using Azure AI Search and Document Intelligence.

• Enterprise-Grade Controls: Configure organization and project settings, model overrides, and field-level guidance for tailored experiences and robust security.

Requirements & Compatibility

• Azure DevOps Services (cloud) organization.
• Azure OpenAI resource with endpoint, API key, and a deployment model suitable for chat completions.
• Recommended model context length: 32K tokens or higher (e.g., GPT‑4‑32k, GPT‑4.1 32k, GPT-5 or newer models from Azure OpenAI Service Foundry). Newer Azure OpenAI chat models with similar or larger context lengths are supported.
• Permissions: Project Collection Administrator for org‑level settings; Project Administrator for project‑level settings.

Installation

To install the AI Work Item Assistant, follow these steps:

1. Install the Extension: Click on the "Get it free" button and follow the steps to install the extension to your Azure DevOps organization.

2. Choose your Azure DevOps organization and click Install to confirm the installation.

   

3. Configure Permissions: Ensure that the necessary permissions are granted for the extension to access and manage work items in your projects.

4. Need more details?
   • Visit the Installation & Setup page for a comprehensive guide.
   • Check out the FAQ for answers to common questions and their answers.

Setup & Validation

In Azure DevOps, open Organization Settings or Project Settings and find “AI Work Item Assistant”.

1. Configure Azure OpenAI

   • Set the Azure OpenAI endpoint URL, API key, and deployment model name.
   • Save or Update settings, then select Validate OpenAI Settings.

2. (Optional) Enable document understanding

   • Under Azure AI Document Intelligence, configure the service endpoint and API key to extract content from files.

3. (Optional) Ground responses with your content

   • Under RAG Context, configure Azure AI Search endpoint and API key to index project documents (e.g., wikis) and provide additional context to the model.

4. (Optional) Choose supported work item types and fields

   • Use Work Item Types to enable experiences (generator, refinement, child items) and define field guidance for higher‑quality results.

How to Use

• Generate new items

  1. Open Boards → AI Work Item Generator
  2. Enter your idea or paste content; optionally attach files.
  3. Click Generate, select a draft, then Save.

  

  

  

• AI Child Item Generator

  1. Open a Feature or User Story or any work item in Azure DevOps and select AI Child Item Generator.
  2. Click Generate and review the suggested child items (title, description, acceptance criteria, etc.).
  3. Select the items to create, edit as needed, then Save to add them as child work items.

  

  

• AI Work Item Editor

  1. Open any work item and select Refine with AI
  2. Choose the field to improve, enter a prompt, preview changes, then Apply.

  

  

• AI Work Item Insights

  1. In a work item, choose More actions → AI Work Item Insights
  2. Ask natural-language queries: summarize discussions, extract decisions, or track progress.

  

  

• Visit the Product Details page for step-by-step guidance on how to use each feature effectively.

Administration & Security

• AI content is generated via your configured Azure OpenAI endpoint. Configure role‑based access to org/project settings as needed.
• Always review AI‑generated content before saving. Avoid uploading highly sensitive documents.

Share with others in your organization

Think your team could deliver faster with less manual effort? Share the AI Work Item Assistant with others in your organization to unlock AI-powered productivity. The AI Work Item Assistant is ready, just ask your ADO admin to install it.

Troubleshooting

If the extension does not work as expected, check the following:

• Verify your Azure OpenAI connection is active and correctly configured.
• Ensure the AI Work Item Assistant is using an Azure OpenAI model with at least 32K tokens.
• Confirm that you have administrator permissions to configure extensions.

Support

For general support, including troubleshooting, account assistance, or product guidance, please visit our Support & Feedback page to contact our support team.

For in-app support, use the Thumbs Up 👍/Thumbs Down 👎 buttons located within the product interface. This helps us improve specific features based on your experience and feedback.

Privacy Policy

This extension follows the Microsoft Privacy Statement. For details about how data may be collected, used, and protected, please review the Microsoft Privacy Statement.

If your organization maintains its own privacy policy for Azure DevOps extensions, follow your internal guidance.

Terms of Use

By installing and using this extension, you agree to the applicable Microsoft Terms of Use and your organization’s policies for Azure DevOps extensions:

• Microsoft Terms of Use
• Microsoft Services Agreement

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