New Slack AI features mark a significant moment for the platform, according to CEO Denise Dresser, enabling users to capitalize on the technology to drive productivity.
The new offering will bring to Slack a personalized search feature, automated channel recap capabilities, and the ability for users to generate summaries of threads.
According to Slack, these new features “require no training” and are built on the company's “secure, trusted infrastructure” to give users full control over their own data.
Slack AI has apparently been designed with the express intention of allowing users to utilize what is described as a “deep reservoir of proprietary context” contained on the platform.
“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,” Dressler said.
What users can expect from the new Slack AI features
With Slack AI’s search feature, users will be able to generate bespoke, custom-made answers to specific questions. These answers will be built on messages within an employee's slack channels and conversations.
Employees who’ve missed meetings or who’s project focuses have been changed at the last minute could benefit from a conversational aide that’s always on call, the company said.
Meanwhile, Slack’s new channel recaps operate in a similar way, but with a less complex generative AI aspect.
With recaps, users can identify highlights from a particular channel, allowing employees to catch up on messages or get a general sense of what a team or project group has been discussing.
The date range of channel recaps can also be changed to cover a period of seven days, or a custom length.
Slack’s new thread summaries will remain largely the same, only with a focus on lengthy conversation threads as opposed to entire channels.
The company cited a new employee as a perfect use case for these sorts of features, describing a new sales team member who can “easily summarize the account channel and get the context they need to prepare for a customer meeting”.
Slack has made a clear bid to put users' minds at ease in terms of data, stating categorically that it will not share customer data with large language model (LLM) providers, nor will it use customer data to train LLMs.
The firm added that its LLMs are hosted “directly within Slack” to ensure that data remains in-house and secure.
Slack’s AI offering looks to compete with others in the space
This is the latest in a series of AI integrations from popular workplace platforms, With Microsoft and Google both having rolled out a series of AI-powered features for Workspace and Microsoft 365.
With Workspace, Google rolled out a range of Duet AI features, including automated call transcriptions and chat summaries. The company recently announced this would be renamed to ‘Gemini for Workspace’ after a major rebranding.
Similarly, Microsoft has woven its Copilot AI assistant within Microsoft 365, with Teams in particular having been the recipient of a number of AI-powered features in recent months.
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Slack has been vocal on its AI ambitions for some time now, and clearly views the integration of the technology as a means to differentiate itself from industry competitors.
Where Slack stands out, however, is integration. While Microsoft and Google’s offerings stop users from working with other software, demanding of them a restrictive level of loyalty, Slack positions itself between the two major players by allowing the use of both Office and Workspace within its platform.
Integration can be a draw for businesses who want to limit the amount of platforms they have to work across, so this makes it a serious contender.
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