Slack Revolutionizes Workplace Communication with AI-Powered Slackbot Upgrade

Slack Is Transforming Slackbot Into an AI Assistant

Imad is a senior reporter covering Google and internet culture. Hailing from Texas, Imad started his journalism career in 2013 and has amassed bylines with The New York Times, The Washington Post, ESPN, Tom's Guide and Wired, among others. Slackbot, the assistant within the team communication platform Slack, is getting AI enhancements and integrations with other AI chatbots to become more agentic, Slack said in a presentation at Dreamforce, a tech conference in San Francisco, on Monday. Slackbot works as a simple assistant, sending people reminders, notifications or updates about their colleagues. It isn't conversational in the same way ChatGPT is. With these AI enhancements, Slackbot will soon function more like an AI chatbot, able to do things on a person's behalf. Don't miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source. Enterprise users will soon be able to converse with Slackbot, asking it to help with projects or analyze documents. Slack will also integrate with Google Drive, One Drive, and Salesforce. OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, and others are bringing their agents into Slack as well. For example, you can ask @Claude to do a web search or scan your workspace to find new insights. At the moment, the AI version of Slackbot is in beta and limited to 70,000 users. However, it will be released to all users in January 2026. Slack will then roll out the feature broader later this year. Companies can also turn off Slackbot. A representative for Slack referred reporters to its blog post. The AI-ification of apps has been a common trend since the release of ChatGPT. Apps like Duolingo, Canva, Phot,oshop, and others have all added AI features to make things easier for users and to attract investor dollars. Slack's biggest competitor in the space, Microsoft Teams, has been integrating more AI features recently.

Slack is turning Slackbot into an AI assistant

Slack is testing an update for Slackbot that transforms it into an AI assistant. Presently, it operates as a tool for delivering reminders and notifications. With the update, Slackbot can create custom plans tailored to your workspace, sift through a mountain of messages, gather information from a range of Slack channels, and more. "Slackbot today is fairly rudimentary," Rob Seaman, Slack's senior vice president of enterprise product, tells The Verge. "But what we've done is we've actually rebuilt it from the ground up as a personalized AI companion." As part of the pilot, Slackbot will appear as an icon next to the search bar at the top of the workspace. Clicking into it will open a DM-like panel on the right side of the screen where you can enter prompts 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 assistance. In a demo seen by The Verge, Slack showed how the AI-upgraded Slackbot can perform more complex tasks, such as organizing a product's launch plan inside a Canvas by gathering information across different Slack channels, as well as help create a social media campaign using a brand's tone. But what seems even more helpful is the new Slackbot's ability to search through a workspace using natural language. That means if you're looking for a document but can't nail down the specific keyword it was attached to, you can ask Slackbot something like "Find me the document that Jay shared in our last meeting." It can also tap into Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar to coordinate and schedule meetings with colleagues. This adds to the other AI-powered features Slack has integrated into the platform, which can already summarize threads and channels as well as decode company jargon. "We'll keep putting those little touches there where they make sense, to save users a click," Seaman said when asked about the future of these features. Slackbot's existing features -- like its automated messages or custom functions in response to commands -- will remain available as well. Companies can choose to opt out of using an AI Slackbot, but individuals in the workspace can't. Slack's AI features operate through Amazon Web Services' virtual private cloud, "meaning that no data leaves the firewall, no data is used in the training of the models at all," according to Seaman. The upgraded Slackbot is already available for 70,000 employees at Salesforce (Slack's parent company), and now the company is testing it with other customers as well. It plans to introduce the new feature to everyone at the end of the year.

Your Slack chatbot is about to get a huge AI upgrade - what's new

The assistant will be able to handle complex tasks and queries If you use Slack for work, you're about to get a new assistant to help you through your day. First reported by The Verge, Slack is apparently working on turning Slackbot into a fully personalized AI companion. At present, Slackbot handles pretty basic tasks like sending reminders, notifying someone if they're mentioned in a channel they're not part of, and sending custom responses to other users. Also: Your team can chat with Anthropic's Claude directly in Slack now - what it can do Slack is hoping to ramp up the bot's usefulness with an AI injection that lets it handle complex tasks like compiling information across multiple channels, getting the latest updates on a project, creating personalized plans, and more. The Verge says the new Slackbot AI will appear as a small icon next to your search bar. Click on it, and you'll see a new panel where you can enter prompts. You can ask basic questions like "Where is that document that was shared in my last meeting?" or more complex ones. A screenshot showed a user asking Slackbot to do some research in two specific channels and create a launch plan and competitive positioning, and Slackbot chirping back that it was working on that task. Also: I love Slack's new Lists feature so much I wish it was a standalone app The new Slackbot can gather data from all your channels, files, and workspaces, and can even learn your specific brand's tone to help create marketing campaigns, the report says. Slack introduced several other AI features over the summer, including channel recaps and thread summaries for team members who join mid-thread, meeting notes after team huddles with action items and deadlines, and real-time translations (a lot like what Zoom introduced earlier this year). According to The Verge, 70,000 employees at Salesforce already have the new Slackbot AI (Salesforce owns Slack), and it's testing the feature for other companies with plans to roll it out to everyone by the end of this year. Also: 6 Slack tips I swear by to turn a chaotic workspace into a well-oiled machine I've reached out to Slack to confirm details. Get the morning's top stories in your inbox each day with our Tech Today newsletter.

Slack is transforming its Slackbot into a 'personalized AI companion'

I've been using Slack for like a decade and the platform's proprietary chatbot, Slackbot, has always been a bit underwhelming. It can deliver reminders and notifications and, well, that's about it. That could change in the near future, as the platform is testing a redesigned Slackbot that's chock full of AI. The new Slackbot is basically an AI chatbot like all the rest, but this one has been purpose-built to help with common work tasks. Folks can use natural language to converse with the bot and it can do stuff like whip up project plans, flag daily priorities and analyze reports. It can also help people find information when they only remember a few scant details. The company says it will "give every employee AI superpowers" so they can "drive productivity at AI speed." To that end, the new Slackbot integrates with tools like Google Drive, Salesforce and One Drive. It can provide "clear insights" by analyzing those other platforms. Slack also says that the chatbot will continue to grow and evolve, eventually being able to "take action on your behalf and build agents at your request, all with no code required." The Verge got a look at the new Slackbot in action and noted that it helped create a social media campaign using a brand's tone and organized a product's launch plan. The publication didn't indicate if the social media campaign and product launch plan were any good. The redesigned and AI-centric Slackbot is currently available as a beta to 70,000 users, but Slack has plans for a broad rollout by the end of the year. Companies will be able to turn off the feature, but all of us individual worker bees won't have that luxury. This is just the latest AI injection by Slack. After all, parent company Salesforce absolutely loves the technology. Slack recently added AI writing assistance to its Canvas document-sharing space and introduced AI‑generated channel recaps and thread summaries. It also recently came out that the company has been using people's chats to train its AI models by default, with companies being forced to specifically request an opt-out.

"This is what AI was meant to be" - Slack reveals major AI boost for Slackbot to supercharge your work

New Salesforce integrations will make it easier to find all the information you need in one location Slack has revealed a host of new innovations as it bids to become "the agentic operating system" and the home of all your business AI agents. The online collaboration tool wants to help enterprises integrate AI agents and CRM data to enhance productivity and accelerate business growth - with a completely rebuilt and souped-up Slackbot at the center, giving users unparalleled access to their data. This will also give users the ability to communicate in conversational tones with Slack, making it easier to get the information or services you need. "Slack is already an agentic operating system - think about it, it's where your people work," Slack CEO Denise Dresser said in her keynote at Dreamforce 2025. "This is not a big grandiose vision I'm unveiling - this is a reality," she added, "this is not just about getting work done...this is about a full reimagine." The new era of Slack looks to be an interface for all your interactions with Salesforce, with new, purpose-built experiences for Agentforce Sales, IT and HR Service, and Tableau. But it's Slackbot which takes center stage, aiming to be what the company says is your "personalized AI companion", able to look at all the vital context in your business data to give richer and more helpful answers. Along with other Salesforce platforms, Slackbot can connect to a range of third-party tools, including the likes of Google Drive, Asana and even Microsoft Teams. When a user opens Slack, they will now be given a list of daily priorities and status reports, but Slackbot can also create a project plan from a canvas or a meeting transcript, find information when you only remember a few details, and help you prepare for meetings like never before. Also speaking at Dreamforce 2025, Peter Doolan, EVP and chief customer officer at Slack, declared, "we want to make things as simple and pleasant and productive as possible," Doolan notes, outlining its aim to "give every employee AI superpowers". "Imagine the power of Slackbot across your companies: it gives you the power of context and AI in the flow of work," he added, "This is what AI was meant to be."

Slack's next-gen Slackbot aims to give "every employee AI superpowers"

The new Slackbot can generate project plans, summarize data, and identify daily priorities. Slack is testing a redesigned, AI-infused version of its proprietary chatbot, Slackbot. The new tool is built to assist with workplace tasks through natural language conversation, aiming to enhance productivity on the company's communication platform. The updated Slackbot functions as an AI chatbot purpose-built for common work assignments. Users can converse with the bot using natural language to perform functions such as generating project plans, identifying daily priorities, and analyzing reports. The bot is also designed to retrieve information when users can only recall limited details about a topic. According to Slack, the objective is to "give every employee AI superpowers" so they can "drive productivity at AI speed." This transformation follows nearly a decade of the original Slackbot's more limited capabilities, which primarily involved delivering reminders and notifications. Video: Slack To expand its functionality, the new Slackbot integrates with external tools including Google Drive, Salesforce, and OneDrive. By connecting to these services, the bot can analyze data from the platforms to provide users with "clear insights." Slack has also stated that the chatbot will continue to evolve. The company's future plans for the tool include enabling it to "take action on your behalf and build agents at your request, all with no code required," allowing for more autonomous operations and customized workflows. During a demonstration observed by The Verge, the AI-powered bot was used to create a social media campaign that adopted a specific brand's tone. It also organized a detailed launch plan for a new product. The publication noted these capabilities but did not provide an evaluation of the quality or effectiveness of the generated content. The redesigned Slackbot is currently in a beta phase, available to approximately 70,000 users. A broad rollout to all users is planned by the end of the year. While companies will have the option to disable the feature at an organizational level, individual employees will not be able to opt out. This initiative is part of a broader integration of AI features into the Slack platform by its parent company, Salesforce. Recently, Slack introduced AI writing assistance within its Canvas document-sharing space. The company also launched AI-generated channel recaps and thread summaries to help users catch up on conversations. It was also disclosed that Slack uses customer chat data by default to train its AI models. Companies must submit a specific request to opt out of having their data used for this purpose.

Slack Now Acts as an Agentic OS for Salesforce Tools

Slack is also rolling out a custom API for the enterprise search function Slack, on Monday, announced a couple of new artificial intelligence (AI)-focused features to enable more agentic workflows. Calling itself an "agentic OS," the company said that it is now integrating various Salesforce tools within its interface, allowing users to directly access their data and perform agentic tasks on Slack. Alongside, the company is also planning to release a custom application programming interface (API) for enterprise search that will let organisations securely search across all of their data via a single interface. Slack Integrates Salesforce Tools With Agentic Capabilities In a press release, the enterprise-focused communication and collaboration platform announced that it is bringing a fundamental shift to how people use Slack and Salesforce tools. The Salesforce-owned platform will now act as the conversational interface for its parent's several tools, including Sales, IT and HR, and Tableau. All of these are powered by Agentforce, enabling agentic actions directly in the platform. The Sales experience will let users access AI agents to find insights, suggestions for next steps, and record updates of customer data. Similarly, the IT Service lets employees of an organisation get instant help for common requests, with AI agents resolving the issue. For more complex problems, the AI creates a channel to loop in the right people with all the relevant context. Coming to the HR Service, AI agents can answer queries about company policies, file time-off requests, and check on employees' onboarding tasks. Similarly, with Tableau, agents can create live, interactive dashboards and analytics. All of this is conversationally enabled, meaning users do not have to get into the nitty-gritty of the underlying tech. Apart from this, Slack is also planning to release a new custom API for enterprise search that will let businesses securely search across all of their organisation's data, including internal systems and on-premise software. The feature also brings several connectors to the tools that users generally use. Several third-party data hubs, such as Gmail, Outlook, Dropbox, and Notion, will be added soon. The company says these features will turn Slack into a personal AI companion for employees, allowing them to gain insights from different software and data hubs. With the help of AI agents, Slackbots can also combine these siloed data into comprehensive reports, and then take actions on its basis.