The revamped Slackbot works more like an AI assistant that can help you create plans, schedule meetings, find files, and more.
Slack is testing an update to Slackbot that turns it into an AI assistant. For now, it functions as a tool for sending reminders and notifications. With the update, Slackbot can create custom plans that fit your workspace, search through a ton of messages, gather information from different Slack channels, and more.
Slackbot becomes an AI assistant
“Slackbot today is pretty simple,” says Rob Seaman, SVP of enterprise products at Slack. “What we did was rebuild it from the ground up as a personalized AI companion.”
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As part of the pilot, Slackbot will appear as an icon next to the search bar at the top of your workspace. Clicking it will open a DM-like panel on the right side of the screen, where you can enter commands like “What are my priorities for today?” or “Find the latest updates on a project.” The new Slackbot will draw from your conversations, files, and workspace to provide personalized help.
In a demo seen by The Verge, Slack showed how the upgraded Slackbot can perform more complex tasks, like organizing a product launch plan within a Canvas by pulling information from various Slack channels. It also helps create a social media campaign using a brand’s tone.
But what seems even more useful is Slackbot’s new ability to search within a workspace using natural language. This means that if you’re looking for a document but can’t find the exact keyword associated with it, you can ask Slackbot something like “Find me the document Jay shared in our last meeting.” It can also connect to Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar to coordinate and schedule meetings with colleagues.
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Slack: AI capabilities
This upgrade adds to the platform AI-powered, which can already summarize threads and channels as well as decode corporate jargon.
“We’re going to continue to add these little touches where they make sense, to save users a click,” Seaman said when asked about the future of these features. Existing Slackbot features — like automated messages — will remain available.
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Companies can choose not to use Slackbot as an AI assistant, but individuals in the workplace cannot. Slack’s AI features run on ’ virtual private cloud Amazon Web Services, “meaning no data leaves the firewall, no data is used to train the models.”
The upgraded Slackbot is already available to 70,000 employees at Salesforce (Slack's parent company), and the company is now testing it with other customers as well. It plans to roll out the new feature to all users by the end of the year.
