Slack Revolutionizes Workflow with AI-Powered Chatbots and Automation Tools

India ♥️ Slack

According to Microsoft and LinkedIn's latest 2024 Work Trend Index, a staggering 92% of knowledge workers in India already use AI at work. Salesforce's Slack AI recently revealed that customers globally have summarised more than 600 million messages, saving a collective 1.1 million hours across users. In a mission to continue the momentum, it has introduced new features -- Slack AI huddle, AI Workflow Builder, and Slack AI search. It now sees India as a promising market for growth. India is embracing AI in the workplace rapidly. According to Microsoft and LinkedIn's latest 2024 Work Trend Index, a staggering 92% of knowledge workers in India already use AI at work, outpacing the global average of 75%. This strong adoption reflects the confidence Indian employees have in AI's ability to save time and boost creativity, helping them focus on higher-value tasks. At the same time, employees are having mixed feelings about adopting AI. Slack's survey on AI usage highlighted that Maximalists, who not only embrace AI but promote its usage, makeup 54% of India's workforce. Other groups like the Underground (20%) use AI regularly but prefer to keep it low-profile, with 64% choosing not to discuss or advocate for AI adoption, while 41% say their companies don't push for AI use either. While Rebels (5%) steer clear of AI, citing concerns about fairness and societal impact. In contrast, Superfans (17%) and Observers (5%) represent those engaging more cautiously with AI, with many keen to deepen their skills. With this backdrop of varying AI personas and a nation highly engaged with AI, the introduction of Slack's latest AI tools couldn't be more timely. "This isn't just about getting work done. It's about unlocking new productivity levels to drive results and move business forward for every team and department. In today's increasingly complex work environment, true productivity requires a work operating system built for the future of work - and that is Slack," said Denise Dresser, CEO, Slack. With Slack AI Huddle, key points and action items are automatically captured during discussions, allowing users to focus on the conversation without worrying about taking notes. Invite Slack AI into the huddle, and it instantly organises everything -- from real-time audio and messages to shared files -- into a concise transcript, complete with citations and action items. This is something similar to Microsoft's Team Copilot, which serves as a meeting facilitator within Teams meetings and chats. Recently, the tool got an update, summarising meetings by taking notes, suggesting follow-up tasks based on discussions, ensuring meeting structure by tracking time for agenda items. But that's just the beginning. Slack's AI Workflow Builder takes automation to a new level, allowing users to create workflows with simple conversational prompts. Whether it's sending a welcome message to new teammates or setting up recurring summaries for important channels, Slack AI handles it all with no manual setup required. Slack AI has also revamped its search capabilities, making it easier to find the right answers. Now, search results pull not only from conversational data but also from shared files, connected apps, and documents like Google and Microsoft files. With retrieval augmented generation (RAG) powering the search, every result is personalised and accurate, giving users the most relevant information based on their access. Whether it's messages or meeting transcripts, Slack AI ensures you're always equipped with the answers you need, right when you need them. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Microsoft's Satya Nadella think AI systems act like "senior employees" and "project managers". Major tech players have already unveiled several AI tools that are transforming workplace productivity by automating routine tasks and streamlining communication. Some of them include Google's AI Teammate, powered by Gemini, Microsoft's Recall, and OpenAI's ChatGPT desktop app. But AI's impact extends beyond boosting efficiency, it can also play a crucial role in employee well-being. By detecting signs of stress or excessive screen time, managers can intervene proactively, potentially mitigating the risk of burnout or mental health issues. Moreover, in the context of rising concerns about workplace suicides, AI monitoring could provide critical insights into identifying and addressing distressing behaviours among colleagues. And so, AI isn't just a productivity partner, it is also becoming a well-being guardian.

Slack brings a handful of AI tools into your workflow

Slack recently unveiled a suite of new features for its higher-tier users, centered around AI integration. Among the most talked-about is Slack AI, which includes AI-generated Huddle summaries, echoing the channel summaries that some subscribers already enjoy. But the update goes further, allowing users to engage with Salesforce's AI agents directly within Slack, alongside third-party tools that introduce AI-powered web search and image generation. This AI push isn't entirely out of the blue. Salesforce acquired Slack in 2021, right when the platform was booming as the go-to messaging service for remote workers. Fast forward three years, and Salesforce is leaning heavily into AI -- so much so that it's trickling down into Slack's DNA. CEO Denise Dresser emphasizes that Slack is the perfect platform for this shift, as it's already a hub for workplace conversation, making it an ideal spot to embed AI interactions. However, it's hard not to be a bit skeptical. Since ChatGPT burst onto the scene in 2022, countless companies have bolted AI features onto their products, often in ways that feel more like a trendy gimmick than a meaningful enhancement. And while AI summaries and integrations in Slack might seem helpful, one has to question if this addition is truly a natural evolution or simply another example of chasing the AI bandwagon. Does AI in Slack really enhance the core product, or is it just Salesforce showing it can ride the AI wave? The answer remains to be seen. "Slack's agent-powered work operating system is redefining what it means to work smarter, not just differently. We've moved beyond collaboration; every day, millions of teams are leveraging purpose-built AI, with customer data, automation, and now agents seamlessly integrated into the flow of work. This isn't just about getting work done. It's about unlocking new productivity levels to drive results and move business forward for every team and department. In today's increasingly complex work environment, true productivity requires a work operating system built for the future of work -- and that is Slack." -Denise Dresser Salesforce introduced Agentforce in Slack, a new user interface that allows teams to interact with data, surface insights, and perform actions directly within Slack. Teams can now engage with Agentforce agents to get status updates, recommend next steps, draft emails, and more, all powered by AI. Slack now supports third-party AI agents and assistants from partners such as Adobe, Anthropic, Cohere, and Perplexity. These agents can assist with tasks like content creation, project management, and data analysis, providing a more efficient workflow within a secure environment. Salesforce channels connect Salesforce CRM records to Slack conversations, enabling teams to collaborate more effectively on accounts and opportunities. Teams can securely view and edit CRM data directly in Slack without duplicating work across multiple systems. Slack AI introduces several new features, including huddle notes that capture key meeting takeaways and action items. Slack AI can also generate workflows with simple conversational prompts and improve search by generating answers from files, apps, and conversational data in Slack. Slack AI huddle notes capture real-time audio and messages shared in a huddle, organizing them into transcripts, action items, and files in a canvas. This feature ensures everyone stays informed, even if they missed the meeting. With the AI Workflow Builder, users can easily automate tasks by typing conversational prompts. It simplifies workflow creation, automating repetitive tasks and allowing teams to focus on more important work. Slack AI search is now enhanced with file and app knowledge, surfacing richer and more relevant answers. It uses Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to pull information from messages, files, and connected apps that users have access to in Slack. Slack templates provide pre-configured collections of Slack tools, such as channels, canvases, lists, and workflows, tailored for specific departments or tasks. These templates help streamline work processes and improve productivity across various use cases. Salesforce channels bring CRM data from opportunities, cases, and custom objects into Slack channels, allowing teams to collaborate on customer records in real time. These channels also allow for editing and updating Salesforce data directly within Slack. Slack AI can summarize key highlights from customer-related discussions across multiple Salesforce channels, helping teams stay informed and aligned. This summary feature also provides quick access to essential information for decision-making. Salesforce channels will soon be embedded in the Salesforce user interface, allowing agents and teams to collaborate seamlessly without leaving the CRM. Conversations within Slack will be tied to specific records, improving communication and workflow efficiency. The Slack Marketplace now offers a range of third-party AI agents, including Adobe Express, Amazon Q Business, Anthropic's Claude, Asana, Box, Cohere, Perplexity, Workday, and Writer. These agents assist with tasks like content creation, project management, and data analysis. Agentforce Sales Coach, powered by Data Cloud, can autonomously facilitate role-plays and provide personalized feedback to sellers, helping them improve their skills within the context of a deal, right in Slack. Adobe Express in Slack allows users to create on-brand content, such as presentations and media campaigns, directly from simple prompts, making content creation faster and easier. Amazon Q Business answers questions, summarizes data, and generates content based on enterprise systems, enhancing productivity within Slack. Anthropic's Claude helps with content creation, code debugging, and data analysis, accelerating workflows and research within Slack. Asana provides project insights, status updates, and next steps within Slack conversations, helping teams stay aligned and move projects forward efficiently. Box offers AI-powered insights from uploaded content, allowing users to analyze contracts, answer questions, and summarize reports directly in Slack. Cohere enhances Slack efficiency by providing AI-driven content and answers grounded in proprietary business data, streamlining internal communication. Perplexity enables users to search the web for trusted sources, providing competitive analysis and strategic recommendations within Slack. Workday provides AI assistants that allow employees and managers to access financial and HR insights, such as pay and job requisitions, directly in Slack. Writer helps teams draft assets, analyze data, and brainstorm ideas using AI-driven insights tailored to customer data, brand, and workflows within Slack. Salesforce channels will be accessible in Salesforce Starter Suite, enabling small businesses to connect Slack to a simplified CRM, enhancing collaboration and speeding up decision-making. Achieve more with less effort with Slack AI's assistance Absolutely, having a wide range of features is fantastic, and Salesforce has certainly packed Slack with tools that can transform how teams work. But there's a big challenge here that often gets overlooked -- most Slack users aren't tech experts. We see it all the time: companies roll out new, advanced tools, but the end users don't fully embrace them, not because the features aren't useful, but because they're not intuitive or people haven't been properly trained. Slack is now integrating AI agents, automations, and complex CRM channels, and while this all sounds amazing on paper, if your average user doesn't know how to navigate these features, it's just noise. It's not about loading the app with more features; it's about helping users understand how to use those features efficiently. Without proper education and onboarding, employees might stick to the basics -- sending messages and sharing files -- while missing out on tools that could save them time or help them work smarter. The best apps don't just introduce new tools; they also take the time to guide users on how to implement them into their workflows. Think about solutions like in-app tutorials, user-friendly documentation, or even dedicated training sessions. Companies that master this balance between innovation and education are the ones that see the real productivity gains.

Slack now lets users add AI agents from Asana, Cohere, Adobe, Workday and more

Workplace messaging app Slack wants to make it easier to build and connect AI agents for clients. The new feature, Agents for Slack, will be available for paying users. It will bring Salesforce's AI agents, third-party agents from partners and Slack customers' own agents into the chat platform. Rob Seaman, Slack's chief product officer, said in an interview with VentureBeat that desk workers are increasingly wanting to consolidate more of their workflow into a single place so they don't have to hunt for information. "We see that desk workers are spending a self-reporting third of their day on tasks they consider low value and half of the people we talk to aren't able to find the information they need to do their jobs," Seaman said. "We think this is because there are more and more apps and services they use on a daily basis and it's hard to keep track of." While Slack does not necessarily have its own agents, it hosts agents from the platforms its customers use. Salesforce with its new suite of AI agents, Agentforce lets people "talk" to their data on Salesforce and take action on tasks. Seaman said people can type questions or instructions to Agentforce, "so your responses will be based on the data in your CRM and the conversation and context happening on Slack." Slack will also connect to out-of-the-box AI agents built by Asana, Cohere, Adobe Express, Workday and Writer. The actions these agents would take will depend on the programming set by the partners. Customers who made their own AI agents can also integrate these into Slack. Continued growth of AI agents, but convincing users to use them is another story Bringing AI agents into Slack means users can call up, say, Agentforce from a dedicated interface on Slack. This brings up that AI agent, where the user can then ask questions normally stored in the customer relationship management system in the Slack window. The agent can recommend the next steps or draft emails on the users' behalf. However, Slack insists that agents will only have limited access to customer information. "We built a new API specifically for agents where there's a contract seeded with it that the data cannot be exported, stored or used for LLM training," Seaman said. Agents made by Slack customers can still train on their data. Seaman said to think of AI agents on Slack as more powerful versions of the apps already connected to the chat service, like Google Calendar or Zoom. Slack is just one of the companies adding access to AI agents, but it is probably one of the larger workplace productivity companies offering it to customers. Agents are fast becoming one of the biggest trends for enterprises. Recently, other providers like ServiceNow announced AI agent capabilities for users. However, few agents have been in use for very long, so employees have little experience using them. We're still developing autonomous agents that will not require as much prompting or continuous instructions. Slack and other companies adding access to AI agents have to prove that there is demand for such agents by actual users, especially as AI adoption isn't yet 100%. Slack's research showed some hesitancy in the workplace about adopting AI tools, particularly as some workers feel using it is unfair. Slack must also convince users to connect more apps to their messaging system. Slack leaning in on AI innovations Adding AI agents to Slack is not the only AI-focused update from the company. It is adding notes and transcriptions of conversations through Huddles -- Slack's audio meeting option -- both the audio and written messages. The notes will show up in a canvas, a tab in a Slack channel that summarizes the channel's action items, or any other notes people in channel want to share. The AI Workflow Builder will generate workflows from prompts to automate tasks, while AI search will find answers to questions from files uploaded on Slack, transcripts or documents from connected apps like Zoom.

Slack is turning into an AI agent hub. Should it? | TechCrunch

The head of Slack, Denise Dresser, tells TechCrunch she is shifting the business chat platform into a "work operating system," specifically by making Slack a hub for AI applications from Salesforce, Adobe, and Anthropic. The company's CEO sees Slack as more than a place to chat with your coworkers, but do users want that? And if they do, will they pay a premium for it? Slack announced several new features on Monday for a pricier tier of the messaging platform: Slack AI. The updates include AI-generated Huddle summaries, similar to the channel summaries already available to those subscribers. Users can also now chat with Salesforce's AI agents in Slack, alongside tools from third parties that will enable AI web search and AI image generation. Salesforce purchased Slack in 2021, shortly after the messaging platform became a staple of remote work for millions of people. Three years later, Salesforce is pivoting hard to AI agents -- apparently so hard that their popular messaging service is doing it too. Slack CEO Denise Dresser says the platform will play a key role in the transformation, since it's a natural place to interact with AI agents, because people are already chatting there throughout the workday. "AI is showing us a new way to experience technology which is very organic to Slack: it's conversational, you're surfacing information, and you're taking action right in the flow of work," said Dresser, who took over as Slack's chief executive 10 months ago, in an interview. "There's probably not a better place and product than Slack to allow you to do that." But why does Slack need AI? Ever since ChatGPT launched in 2022, a lot of companies have introduced AI features as a way to appear "cutting edge" even if the integration doesn't make much sense to the core product. Slack adding AI agents to its messaging service doesn't seem to be an obvious exception. Dresser's justification for AI agents is that Slack is not simply a work messaging platform, but rather a digital workplace or work OS that "brings all your people and processes together." The head of Slack tells TechCrunch that every CEO is asking for AI features, such as ways to quickly catch up on team discussions or tools to surface information buried in some database. These are some small ways Slack is trying to bring companies into the AI era, she explained. One of Slack's new agents, Agentforce, will allow Salesforce customers to perform on-demand analysis of business data directly in Slack. Cohere and Anthropic's Slack agents will offer similar services, as long as you're paying for their enterprise AI services. Perplexity is also releasing an agent for Slack that will let you search the web. Adobe Express's Slack agent will let you create branded content from text prompts within the messaging service. Klarna's CEO made headlines last month when he announced plans to drop Salesforce and Workday as software providers and replace them with internally built AI tools. Andreessen Horowitz partners published a blog post in July predicting changes like this, where businesses would shift away from the pricey CRM services in favor of in-house AI solutions. Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff is skeptical of Klarna's AI solutions, and wants to see some proof the company is really doing it. When asked about the Klarna CEO's comments, Dresser said that enterprise AI solutions need to be trustworthy and safe, two things Salesforce is trying to guarantee for customers. That trust was tested earlier this year when Slack came under fire for training a recommender system on customer data by default, according to part of its privacy policy found by developers on Hacker News. It was later revealed that Slack was using customer data to power emoji recommendations, and not its large language models underlying Slack AI. But still, the privacy policy claimed that Slack required users to send an email to the company if they didn't want their messages to be part of Slack's training data. Slack claimed to not use customer data to train Slack AI then, and continues to today. "No LLMs are trained on Slack data, period," said chief product officer Rob Seaman in an interview with TechCrunch. "Honestly, there was a hiccup and an update to a policy on our website that we could have handled better. Especially in this age of AI and heightened awareness of how your data is being used, that turned into a thing we wish hadn't." These questions around privacy only become more prevalent as Slack leans further into AI. The service is changing from strictly messaging into one where AI tools are pulling information in and out of the platform. Users have good reason to be skeptical as AI becomes just another tool in the box.

Slack introduces AI-powered chatbots and automation workflows - SiliconANGLE

Slack introduces AI-powered chatbots and automation workflows Slack is updating its collaboration platform with a set of artificial intelligence features designed to save time for knowledge workers. The Salesforce.com Inc. unit detailed the enhancements today ahead of its parent company's Dreamforce 2024 product event, which will kick off on Tuesday. The first addition to Slack's feature set is a collection of chatbots known as Agentforce Agents. They're part of a broader AI feature bundle, Agentforce, that Salesforce debuted last week. The company is embedding new machine learning features into several of its cloud services in a bid to make users more productive. The first chatbot that Slack detailed today is called Agentforce in Slack. It enables users to access sales data that their company keeps in Salesforce's customer relationship management platform without switching tabs. The chatbot can also generate promotional emails and perform certain related tasks. Another new chatbot, Agentforce Sales Coach, allows users to hold simulated sales negotiations. The goal is to help salespeople hone their pitching skills. According to Slack, the chatbot can not only raise the points that a prospect might make but also provide users with feedback on the persuasiveness of their arguments. Customers whose requirements are not met by the built-in chatbots can access third-party AI agents. On launch, there are agents from three companies: large language model developer Cohere Inc., AI writing assistant startup Writer and Adobe Inc. The latter company's agent allows Slack users to interact with its Adobe Express graphic design application, which lends itself to creating marketing materials such as brochures and newsletters. More chatbots are in the works. Slack says that AI search engine provider Perplexity Inc. and Anthropic PBC, which develops the Claude series of LLMs, are among the companies planning to introduce AI agents for its platform. Enterprises with specialized requirements can optionally build their own custom agents using the platform's application programming interfaces. The chatbots detailed today are rolling out alongside updates to two existing Slack features: Workflow Builder and Slack AI. Workflow Builder is a tool that can perform actions automatically when certain conditions are met. For example, a worker could configure it to notify colleagues whenever an important business document is modified. Workflow Builder can also perform actions in third-party applications. Until now, the only way to interact with the tool was through a point-and-click interface. Users had to manually specify what actions an automation workflow should perform, when and in what application. Today's update adds a chatbot interface that makes it possible to create automation workflows with natural language instructions, which is significantly faster. Another update is rolling out to Slack AI, an existing suite of machine learning features in the collaboration platform. It's available as an add-on for paid Slack subscriptions. The feature bundle is being expanded with a tool that can automatically extract key information from Slack Huddles meetings. The tool generates a summary of each meeting along with a transcript, an overview of the action items discussed by the participants and the files they shared. These items are automatically organized in a canvas, a shared document similar to a Google Doc that can be accessed directly within the Slack interface. Slack AI's search bar is receiving an update as well. The tool can now retrieve information from canvases, uploaded documents, clips and other files in addition to the data sources it supported until now.

Slack is adding AI agents. This is what you can do with them

The new AI features could help humans with tasks such as drafting emails. Workplace messaging app Slack is adding several artificial intelligence (AI) features, which include the ability to connect AI-powered agents, marking the future of autonomous generative AI in the workplace. AI agents are designed to take autonomous actions to assist humans and do not require a human to tell them what to do, as they gather data based on user preference. AI agents already exist in some home devices, such as those that regulate the temperature of a room. This is unlike AI chatbots, which are designed with conversation with humans in mind and serve as more of a co-pilot in assisting humans. The Salesforce-owned company does not have its own AI agents and will instead support Salesforce's AI-powered agents Agentforce, as well as outside AI agents from Asana, Cohere, Adobe Express, Workday and Writer. Customers who make their own AI agents can also integrate them into Slack. The tool is only available to paying Slack customers. The move comes as Slack aims to become a place where humans can communicate with bots and agents. The AI agent would help humans with tasks such as drafting emails. Slack said that the agents will only have limited access to customer information. "We built a new API specifically for agents where there's a contract seeded with it that the data cannot be exported, stored or used for LLM training," Rob Seaman, Slack's chief product officer, said in an interview with VentureBeat in July. "Desk workers are spending a self-reporting third of their day on tasks they consider low value and half of the people we talk to aren't able to find the information they need to do their jobs," he added. "We think this is because there are more and more apps and services they use on a daily basis and it's hard to keep track of". The announcement comes one day before Salesforce's annual Dreamforce conference on Tuesday. Slack also announced an AI Workflow Builder, which will generate workflows from prompts to automate tasks, and an AI search feature to find answers to questions from files uploaded on Slack from connected apps such as Zoom. The company said it was also adding audio and written notes and transcriptions of conversations through Slack's audio meeting feature Huddles.

Salesforce Unveils Slack Innovations: Bringing Agents, Purpose-Built AI, and CRM Data into One Work Operating System to Fuel Productivity

Slack delivers a comprehensive agent-powered work operating system for every company, of any size, in any industrySlack turns all autonomous agents into teammates, bringing their actions and insights into the fiow of workCustomers like RTL, Anaplan, Snyk, Accenture, Slalom, and more are transforming how their organizations work with Slack Today Salesforce announced a series of new Slack innovations that enable organizations to bring their company knowledge, data, agents, apps, and automation into one agent-powered work operating system. In one conversational interface, teams can work alongside agents with purpose-built AI, unifying data across Slack and Salesforce. Agentforce in Slack: With a new user interface (UI) for agents, teams can now talk to their data, surface insights, and take action on tasks in Slack with Salesforce's Agentforce Agents.Third-party AI agents: AI agents and assistants from partners like Adobe, Anthropic, Cohere, Perplexity, and more can be deployed in the same trusted, secure environment in Slack.Salesforce channels: A new type of channel that connects Salesforce CRM records to channel-based conversations in Slack gives teams a comprehensive space to collaborate on every account and opportunity, increasing alignment to move work forward. Coming soon, Salesforce channels will be embedded in the Salesforce user interface. New enhancements in Slack also include purpose-built AI functionality across search and automation as well as new solutions-based templates to unlock productivity for every use case and line of business. New Slack AI features: Enhanced capabilities like huddle notes, simplified automation, and improved search allow teams to work smarter, faster, and with greater focus.Slack templates: Collections of ready-to-use templated channels, canvases, lists, and automated workflows make work in any department and for any task faster and more productive. Why it matters: Work is broken. Desk workers report spending 41% of their day on tasks they consider low-value, nearly half aren't able to find the information they need to do their jobs, and there are more apps and disconnected work than ever before. Simply adding AI, with even more apps, into an already inefficient work system will only magnify these challenges. Teams need a better, more efficient way to work together - where agents become teammates, AI is purpose-built and intuitive, and customer data integrates into a single work operating system. Go deeper: Teams are improving their productivity by as much as 47% by anchoring their work in Slack's agent-powered work operating system. With the innovations announced today, customers can centralize everything they need to get work done more efficiently. Innovation Details Agents in Slack: Teams can seamlessly work alongside both Salesforce Agentforce agents and third-party agents as they close deals, create campaigns, solve customer problems, and drive projects to the finish line. Users engage with these agents via a new dedicated and secure UI in Slack. Agentforce (formerly Einstein Copilot) brings AI-powered CRM insights directly into Slack so users can act on customer data faster. Users can ask questions or give instructions in natural language, and they'll receive trusted responses grounded in both structured CRM data and unstructured conversational data. Agentforce can provide a status update on opportunities and cases, recommend next steps, draft emails and action plans, share those details in a direct message or channel, and more.Agents from Agentforce, powered by Data Cloud, can reason, orchestrate tasks, and take action, delivering personalized experiences at scale. For example, Agentforce Sales Coach can autonomously facilitate role-plays within the context of a deal and provide personalized and objective feedback to help a seller improve their skills right in Slack.Third-party agents help with tasks so users can focus on the work that matters. Users can build custom agents with purpose-built APIs or install third-party agents from the Slack Marketplace, a hub for Slack apps, agents, AI assistants, and more. Agents and AI assistants available in the Marketplace today come from Slack partners like Adobe Express and Cohere, with more coming soon from Anthropic, Amazon Q Business, Perplexity, IBM, and more. For example: o Adobe Express allows users to create on-brand content - like design presentations, media campaigns, social posts, or flyers - from a simple prompt. o Amazon Q Business answers questions, provides summaries, generates content, and securely completes tasks based on data and information in the customer's enterprise system o Anthropic's Claude helps create, edit, and summarize content, analyzes data to identify patterns and insights, writes and debugs code, and accelerates research by synthesizing information from multiple sources. o Asana surfaces project insights and recommendations, such as status, blockers, next steps, and more, within the context of Slack conversations. o Box provides AI-powered content insights that help analyze uploaded account contracts, quickly answer competitive questions from internal documents, and summarize reports. o Cohere enhances efficiency with a conversational AI app in Slack that provides content and answers grounded in your proprietary business data. o Perplexity searches the web for trusted sources, providing accurate insights for competitive analysis and strategic recommendations. o Workday provides employees and managers with an AI assistant to access tasks and insights around financial and HR records such as pay, time and absence, job requisitions, and more. o Writer drafts assets, analyzes data, answers questions, and brainstorms new ideas with AI apps tailored to the customer's data, brand, and workflows. New Slack AI features: Teams can work smarter and faster by accessing an intuitive purpose-built AI experience built natively in Slack. Since the release of Slack AI, customers have summarized more than 600 million messages, saving a collective 1.1 million hours across users. Slack AI huddle notes capture key takeaways and action items so users can focus on the work at hand and keep moving. When Slack AI is invited to a huddle, it uses real-time audio and messages shared in the huddle thread to organize a transcript and notes with citations, action items, and files shared into a canvas. Anyone in the channel or direct message where the huddle started can view the AI-powered notes, allowing the whole team to stay in the loop and take action, even if they missed the meeting.AI Workflow Builder generates workflows with simple conversational prompts so users can easily automate their tasks. Now, users can type out a prompt like "send a welcome message to teammates that join a channel" and Slack AI and Workflow Builder will automatically generate a workflow -- no manual work required. With a new "summarize channel" step, users can create a workflow that publishes recurring summaries of -- and in -- their favorite channels.Slack AI search now surfaces results with file and app knowledge so users can get richer and more relevant answers. Previously, users could ask questions in their own words in the Slack search bar and get a concise answer based on conversational data in Slack. Now, Slack AI will also generate answers from files uploaded and shared in Slack, canvases, transcripts from clips, documents from connected apps, Google and Microsoft files, and more. Slack AI uses Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to generate answers, with results that are unique to the user performing the search and only pull from messages or files that the user has access to in Slack. Customer data remains in Slack's closed environment and is not used to train large language models (LLMs). Salesforce channels: Teams can stay aligned and move work forward quickly in a unified experience that bridges Salesforce CRM data and customer-centric conversations in Slack. Salesforce channels securely bring CRM data from Salesforce records -- including opportunities, cases, custom objects, and more -- into corresponding Slack channels so users can track progress, share knowledge, and support customers. Users can also securely edit and update their CRM data right in Slack, eliminating the need to duplicate information in multiple systems.With Slack AI conversation summaries in Salesforce channels, users can also quickly catch up on key highlights about a single customer across other related Salesforce channels within the Salesforce account hierarchy. For example, while in an account channel, an account director can use Slack AI to get up to speed on discussions about their customer in a related opportunity channel, or get visibility into ongoing conversations about that customer's support case in a related case channel.With metadata automatically mapped between Slack and Salesforce, Salesforce channels adhere to the record permissions that are assigned to a user in Salesforce, allowing that user to only see and edit data in Slack that they're also allowed to in Salesforce.Coming soon, Salesforce channels will be embedded in Salesforce's user interface. For example, a service agent won't have to leave Salesforce to talk to a product expert working in Slack, and the entire conversation remains tied to the record.Companies will also be able to access Salesforce channels in Salesforce Starter Suite, allowing small businesses to connect Slack to a simplified, easy-to-use CRM to speed up decision-making and collaborate around customer data. Slack templates: Teams can standardize how work gets done and improve time to value with pre-configured collections of Slack's productivity tools for every line of business or use case. Users can choose a specific solution for a common project or program, like managing a project, collecting feedback, and triaging help requests, from the Templates hub in their Slack workspace. With one click, Slack will generate a new channel specific to that use case, complete with a templated canvas, list, and automated workflow so teams can jump right into work.Templates streamline getting work started with guidance on best practices, including the structure and framework for common tasks. Channels are pre-built with specific naming prefixes, canvases have pre-configured formatting with pre-populated data, lists come with auto-created required fields, and workflows come ready with predetermined steps.For example, marketing teams can launch campaigns faster by kicking off a channel that includes a standardized brief in a canvas, a project plan in a list, and an automated workflow for weekly status updates. The Salesforce perspective: "Slack's agent-powered work operating system is redefining what it means to work smarter, not just differently. We've moved beyond collaboration; every day, millions of teams are leveraging purpose-built AI, with customer data, automation, and now agents seamlessly integrated into the flow of work. This isn't just about getting work done. It's about unlocking new productivity levels to drive results and move business forward for every team and department. In today's increasingly complex work environment, true productivity requires a work operating system built for the future of work - and that is Slack." - Denise Dresser, CEO, Slack Reactions to the news: "Every employee at RTL has a task or process that generative AI can help with, which is why Slack AI has been crucial for helping our teams get work done more efficiently. For example, we are expecting to save 16,000 hours this year with the ability to catch up on conversations and get daily recaps. We look forward to seeing generative AI become even more ingrained into the way we collaborate in Slack and are sure that we'll drive even more productivity than ever before." - Frank Penning, CIO, RTL"With Slack AI, the Anaplan sales team can easily stay up-to-date in account channels and find the information they need, right when they need it -- saving thousands of hours annually across the team." - Bill Schuh, Chief Revenue Officer, Anaplan"We're excited that Slack users will soon be able to leverage Cohere's frontierenterprise-grade AI models directly within the platform to enhance their work. Whether it's sourcing information, drafting content, or summarizing documents, Cohere's highly secure AI technology within Slack enables businesses to supercharge productivity and efficiency with their workforce. We look forward to this collaboration helping customers transform their work." - Saurabh Baji, SVP of Engineering, Cohere"The ability for teams to work together efficiently, with conversations grounded in customer data, is a game changer and an incredible advantage for our business. By being able to stay better aligned around the customer, our teams will be able to deliver more value for customers." - Ariel Sakin, VP of Corporate Information Systems, Snyk"Salesforce channels bring customer data closer to decision points. Our Salesforce account teams can now access Salesforce customer data - across deals, cases, and projects - at their fingertips, streamlining their workflow, improving efficiency and helping our distributed teams deliver for our clients more effectively." - Stephanie Sadowski, Sr. Managing Director and Lead, Accenture Salesforce Business Group"The new template solution is a game-changer because it brings together Slack's most powerful features, from channels to workflows, so our teams can get started on work so much faster. It pulls in the best practices of Slack, all in one place and is a time-saver." - Christine McHone, Tech Industry Leader, Slalom"Metrigy research data shows that almost 80% of companies are using or planning to use generative AI to improve productivity. Successfully adopting generative AI requires a comprehensive work operating system where teams, data, and AI converge, enabling insights from all applications and the ability to create custom workflows. Slack's latest AI innovations increase the power of generative AI across notes, chats, files, agents and apps, creating new potential for innovation and productivity in the AI era." - Irwin Lazar, President and Principal Analyst, Metrigy Availability: Third-party agents are available now in the Slack Marketplace, with more coming soon.Agentforce (formerly Einstein Copilot) in Slack will be available in beta in October 2024.Slack AI is available now as a paid add-on for all paid Slack plans.Salesforce channels are available to Slack Sales Elevate customers now and will be included in Salesforce Starter Suite in the coming months.Slack templates will be available in October 2024.

Slack's new AI-powered assistant aims to streamline your busy work week

Next month, Slack will receive an AI assistant as part of a new beta - plus new impressive AI-powered features to ease your workload. Mondays aren't always just about the start of the work week. They can also introduce new updates that shape the week ahead. Case in point: Slack will receive multiple features that collectively aim to help collect information and streamline workflow. There are five in total, but we're focusing on the three most impactful features. First, we have Agentforce -- an AI assistant that can be used to ask questions or give instructions in a conversational manner. According to the announcement, Agentforce provides status updates on cases, "recommend next steps, draft emails, [make] action plans... and more." It can even roleplay certain sales scenarios to help you practice your negotiation skills. Also: 6 AI features iPhone users can expect first on iOS 18 (and what's coming later) Agentforce won't be available just yet. Salesforce, Slack's parent company, will release the assistant in a beta state next month. Next on the docket are the three new Slack AI-enhanced tools. Huddle Notes is a summarization feature that jots down real-time audio and messages from a huddle thread into a transcript. The text comes complete with citations, action items, and files. Anyone who was in the huddle can view the notes at any time. Workflow Builder lets you do exactly as the name suggests: make workflows to help with tasks. For instance, supervisors could instruct the Builder to send out welcome messages to team members whenever they join a channel. Also: How to enable Slack notifications on your Apple Watch Additionally the internal search engine is getting an upgrade. The answers it generates will contain information from uploaded files, video transcripts, Google files, Slack canvases, and other sources. These tools are available right now as a "paid add-on for all paid Slack plans." Lastly, Salesforce will roll out Slack templates next month. These are pre-made configurations you can add to a channel before opening it. One template, as an example, lets you add "a standardized brief in a canvas, a project plan in a list, [plus] an automated workflow" right from the get-go. Also: Slack now offers four iPhone widgets - here's how you can use them As for the other two features, they include third-party agents, like Adobe Express, for helping with specific tasks. The other offers a connection to Salesforce channels. This gives your team access to "CRM (Customer Relationship Management) data from Salesforce records" so you can better assist clients.

Dreamforce 24 - Slack opens up its platform to Agentforce and other AI agents

Salesforce-owned digital teamwork platform Slack yesterday marked Dreamforce week by adding to its growing range of AI tools, all designed to help users organize and streamline their work. AI agents are a big part of the announcements, including deeper integration with agents from other applications, including Salesforce CRM, and AI assistance when building workflow automation. Other new features include a new type of Slack channel that will be embedded in the Salesforce app, automated note-taking during impromptu voice and video calls, and a new set of templates to help teams marshall Slack's expanding toolset when setting up a new activity or project. The headline news, unsurprising in the week that Agentforce comes to Dreamforce, is that agents are coming to Slack in a big way. James Lancaster, VP Product, AI for Slack, says: Our vision here is that agents help people work faster and more efficiently, because they can do things like answer questions you ask, or automate a routine task you have, or even perform an action on behalf of you, all within the context and knowledge of the conversation that's already happening in Slack. So there's going to be a really wide variety of powerful agents in Slack that help people do a number of things. Chief among these is the new Agentforce Assistant, available in beta from October, which will act on natural language questions or instructions about data held in the Salesforce CRM system, while using context from the Slack channel to ensure those answers or actions are accurate and relevant. Agentforce is the new name for Einstein Copilot, Salesforce's new generation of intelligent agents, with the ability to not only answer questions in a conversational manner, but also orchestrate tasks and take autonomous actions across the CRM system and in Slack. For example, Agentforce Sales Coach can autonomously roleplay deal conversations with a sales person within Slack to help them refine their sales pitch. AI agents from other vendors get a look-in too. Slack has launched a new marketplace for supported third-party AI agents, with the initial list including Adobe Express, Asana, Box, Cohere, and Writer, as well as Workday, which already announced its agent partnership with Salesforce in July. Others coming soon include Amazon Q Business, Anthropic, IBM and Perplexity. These tie-ups bring functionality into Slack that otherwise would require switching focus to another app. Lancaster comments: We're hearing customers are really excited about this, because it's not only in their flow of work -- you don't have to leave the Slack channel and go to a Chrome tab -- but it's also grounded in the conversation with everyone you're collaborating with in Slack. Customers will also be able to build their own intelligent agents in Slack, for example to access custom capabilities based on their own proprietary LLM. Being open to other AI agents is "hugely important" adds Lancaster. He goes on: It's an open ecosystem, where if a customer needs a particular tool, they'll be able to use that within Slack. It's very important to us, and that's why it's not just Salesforce agents. We'll have a rich third-party ecosystem of whatever agent is useful to a customer in Slack. While Slack has already had the ability to embed chatbots and intelligent agents for some time, the level of support now offered to these AI agents is significantly higher, as Lancaster explains: In the user experience, there'll be a lot of things that are fine-tuned for AI apps. You can imagine suggested prompts that help someone understand how they could get started in the kind of questions they could ask. You could imagine elegant load states. You could imagine better orientation of all the AI functionality. It's a major update for the app container itself. The other thing I'll call out is that it's in your flow of work ... [in a] flex pane on the right. That's really important, because people want to use these tools side-by-side without context switching. Long story short, yes, it is an evolution of [the existing bot] strategy, but it should provide a lot more power for people using AI in Slack. Alongside the new agent capabilities, there are enhancements to the generative AI features in Slack AI, which was first rolled out in February. This already offers AI-powered search, on-demand summaries of channels and threads, and a recap feature that lets users keep track of what's happening in channels they visit less frequently. The new features are: There's a new, tighter integration with Slack for Salesforce users with the introduction of Salesforce channels. These are Slack channels that relate to specific Salesforce records, such as opportunities or cases, where users can track progress, share knowledge or support customers. Updates to the CRM data can be made directly from Slack. These new channels are available now for Slack Sales Elevate customers, and will soon be available natively embedded in the Salesforce user interface, starting with Salesforce Starter Suite in October. This will mean that, for example, a service agent working in Salesforce won't have to leave Salesforce to collaborate in Slack with a product expert about a specific customer issue, and the conversation would remain tied to that specific customer record in Salesforce. Templates are the final new feature. For a long time, getting started in Slack has been one of the toughest challenges. Available from October, templates are designed to get over that hump, bringing together components such as workflows, lists and canvas to instantly create a solution tailored to specific use cases, such as creating feedback channels for a new product launch, or setting up a marketing campaign. The advent of generative AI has forced teamwork vendors to up their game if they want their platforms to serve as the entry gate to every enterprise application. Slack still sees itself in that league. As Lancaster says: [These] product improvements that are all grounded in this concept of Slack as the operating system where work gets done..., where the full power of Slack goes well beyond simple collaboration. Our vision here is that our customers can bring AI and agents, customer data, team collaboration, even unique business processes, all into the context of Slack, so that they can work faster and smarter in one place. The new dedicated Salesforce channels are an intriguing development, which further emtrenches Slack in that role as far as Salesforce customers are concerned. But at the same time, Slack is having to open up its platform to co-operate with AI agents from other systems, which are equally tightly tied into other enterprise functions outside of CRM. This means that enterprise buyers are more likely to look at Slack as the teamwork platform for collaborating around customers, and will need it to interoperate with other teamwork platforms that focus on collaboration around, for example, product development, IT, marketing, finance, and project delivery. This implies a continuing multi-vendor approach to building an enterprise-wide Collaborative Canvas for digital teamwork.

Slack AI will generate transcripts and notes from huddles

The new AI search can also surface results with file and app knowledge. Salesforce has rolled out some new AI features for its business-focused Slack chat app designed to take over mundane chores like transcription. A key new feature is Slack AI huddle notes to "capture key takeaways and action items so users can focus on the work at hand," the company wrote. This looks like a more powerful version of a previous Slack AI feature that recaps channel highlights and generates summaries for threads in a single click. When invited to a huddle, Slack AI creates a transcript based on real-time audio and messages shared in the thread. It can also organize notes with citations, action items and files shared into a canvas. All huddle attendees can then view the notes later, even if they weren't able to attend. Slack also updated its AI search feature so that it can surface unique results for a user based on files and apps they uploaded in Slack, including canvases, transcripts from clips, documents from connected apps, Google files and more. Another timesaver is the new AI Workflow Builder that helps automate tasks. For instance, users can enter a prompt like "send a welcome message to teammates that join a channel" and Slack AI and Workflow Builder will will generate that functionality with no programming required. Also arriving in the latest update are Slack templates, pre-configured for specific use cases like managing a project, collecting feedback and triaging help requests. The new Slack AI features are now available as a paid add-on for all subscription plans, and Slack templates will roll out in October 2024.

Slack will soon support AI agents from Salesforce, Adobe, Anthropic, Cohere, Perplexity

The big picture: The Salesforce-owned company is trying to evolve to be a place where humans can communicate with a growing array of bots and agents. Driving the news: Ahead of Salesforce's annual Dreamforce conference on Tuesday, Slack announced it would support agents from Adobe, Anthropic, Cohere, Perplexity, Writer and others, in addition to those from Salesforce. Why it matters: Slack's announcement comes as Salesforce is pushing the notion that generative AI can power agents that can act autonomously rather than simply be a co-pilot that empowers humans to work more efficiently. What they're saying: "This vision around Slack being the AI-powered work operating system is really kind of congruent with the whole vision around agents coming into work," Slack CEO Denise Dresser told Axios.