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.<\/p>\n
\u201cSlackbot today is fairly rudimentary,\u201d Rob Seaman, Slack\u2019s senior vice president of enterprise product, tells The Verge. \u201cBut what we\u2019ve done is we\u2019ve actually rebuilt it from the ground up as a personalized AI companion.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 \u201cWhat are my priorities for today?\u201d or \u201cFind the latest updates on a project.\u201d The new Slackbot will draw from your conversations, files, and workspace to provide personalized assistance.<\/p>\n
In a demo seen by The Verge, Slack showed how the AI-upgraded Slackbot can perform more complex tasks, such as organizing a product\u2019s launch plan inside a Canvas by gathering information across different Slack channels, as well as help create a social media campaign using a brand\u2019s tone.<\/p>\n
But what seems even more helpful is the new Slackbot\u2019s ability to search through a workspace using natural language. That means if you\u2019re looking for a document but can\u2019t nail down the specific keyword it was attached to, you can ask Slackbot something like \u201cFind me the document that Jay shared in our last meeting.\u201d It can also tap into Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar to coordinate and schedule meetings with colleagues.<\/p>\n
This adds to the other AI-powered features Slack has integrated into the platform, which can already summarize threads and channels<\/a> as well as decode company jargon<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019ll keep putting those little touches there where they make sense, to save users a click,\u201d Seaman said when asked about the future of these features. Slackbot\u2019s existing features \u2014 like its automated messages or custom functions in response to commands \u2014 will remain available as well.<\/p>\n Companies can choose to opt out of using an AI Slackbot, but individuals in the workspace can\u2019t. Slack\u2019s AI features operate through Amazon Web Services\u2019 virtual private cloud, \u201cmeaning that no data leaves the firewall, no data is used in the training of the models at all,\u201d according to Seaman.<\/p>\n The upgraded Slackbot is already available for 70,000 employees at Salesforce (Slack\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Slack is testing an update for Slackbot that transforms it into an AI assistant. Presently, it operates as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,8543,181,507,3,15776,172,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-221481","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-apps","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-slack","14":"tag-tech","15":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}