Slackbot is entering a new era as an AI agent. The automated assistant, built into the Salesforce-owned messaging platform Slack, has been completely remodeled with generative AI. Salesforce CTO Parker Harris hopes this new version will become as viral as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The cloud software giant rolled out the new AI-powered Slackbot on Tuesday. It is generally available for Business+ and Enterprise+ customers. This new agent can find information, draft emails, and schedule meetings, all within the Slack platform. It can also connect to and interact with other enterprise products like Microsoft Teams and Google Drive to find information when granted permission. This allows users to work across several common applications without leaving Slack.
Salesforce and its competitors are pouring resources into AI product development to preserve and grow their market share. The remodeled Slackbot, originally announced at Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce conference in October, is one piece of the company’s enterprise AI product plan.
Harris stated that this next-generation Slackbot is completely different from what existed before. The company kept the well-known name. He added that Slack typically issues updates to drive adoption, making this new Slackbot quite different from past product updates. He described it as a super agent that acts as an employee agent, powered by generative AI and crafted to be an agentic experience that users love.
Salesforce tests new products like this with its employees for months before release. Harris noted that Slackbot has been the most adopted internal tool they have launched. He said the sheer active user count is a great sign of product-market fit, achieved through adoption rather than corporate mandate.
Harris said this is just the beginning for Slackbot as an AI agent. Future plans may move beyond a text-based agent within Slack to include voice capabilities and the ability for Slackbot to browse the internet alongside its users. He expressed confidence that investing in Slackbot will be incredibly good for both Slack and the entire company.