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Slack launched its long-awaited generative AI play last week with the introduction of Slack AI. Slack first discussed its generative AI plans in detail during the Salesforce World Tour in May 2023. Last week's launch of Slack AI brings AI-driven search, thread summaries and channel recaps to enterprise customers to help employees surface and keep on top of conversations, information and projects shared in the app.
What to Expect with Slack AI
Although AI was already available to Slack users through custom-built internal apps as well as through its partner ecosystem, Slack AI marks the introduction of a native AI tool.
Two of the key features advertised, Slack AI channel recaps and thread summaries, generate essential highlights of conversations to help employees get caught up to speed quickly. Users can set parameters to limit results within specific time frames as well as to only summarize unread messages.
Intelligent search results, an enhanced inquiry tool, goes beyond providing search results and sources to also provide clear and concise answers to direct questions — as well as citations to relevant Slack messages. Any results will only be sourced from channels or direct messages which the inquirer belongs to, a Slack representative told Reworked. This includes Slack admins, who can only use the tools to search or summarize their own information.
“These new AI capabilities empower our customers to access the collective knowledge within Slack so they can work smarter, move faster, and spend their time on things that spark real innovation and growth. In the era of generative AI, Slack is the trusted, conversational platform that connects every part of a business to supercharge team productivity,” said Slack CEO Denise Dresser in a recent company blog post.
Salesforce emphasized that it is committed to retaining customer trust and data protection with the introduction of Slack AI. To that end, it gave assurances that Slack AI’s large language models (LLMs) are hosted directly within Slack, ensuring customer data remains in-house and that it will not be used to serve other clients, directly or indirectly. Additionally, Salesforce plans to implement and maintain effective security measures through detailed access logs, accessible to users and administrators, access management, data retention, host management, network protection and two-factor authentication.
Slack went public with its approach to the design of its AI pilot in a October 2023 blog post. With the integration of this new feature, Slack reiterated the importance of maintaining safety, relevance and usability for its customers. The tool's design principles included a commitment to inform users of when AI is assisting, maintain AI interactions private for individuals as a default and ensure data remains within the Slack infrastructure.
The launch is the company's first since it rolled out its controversial user interface update last fall, aimed at helping people stay "organized, focused and productive." The update divided opinion and resulted in the company rolling back a few of the new elements.
Access to Slack AI
Slack AI is currently available as a paid add-on feature for Slack Enterprise plans, offered in English only. The company plans to introduce additional plans and language support at a yet to be determined date.
What’s Next for Slack
Slack is working to launch another component that will offer the ability to create digest summaries of information from channels that are low priority, yet relevant to know. Additionally, Slack will soon integrate with Salesforce’s Einstein Copilot, a conversational AI assistant.
