Slack will add new generative AI features designed to help users keep up with work chats

Slack GPT has entered the chat.

The workplace messaging app is the latest company to jump on the generative AI bandwagon with a new suite of native features that can provide conversation summaries, writing assistance, and meeting notes.

The features will also enable integration with large language models (LLM) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude to build custom workflows without the need for coding. Another new Slack app will weave in capabilities from parent company Salesforce’s proprietary Einstein GPT for customer data.

The rollout will build on the previous release of a ChatGPT Slack app in March by building LLM capabilities into the platform itself. For instance, Slack GPT might pull together a summary of unread messages to catch users up on missed activity or generate notes for next steps after an audio meeting on the platform. Slack said the tools would be available within the year.

Ali Rayl, Slack’s SVP of product, told Tech Brew that Slack is uniquely well-positioned to take advantage of generative AI because the company’s products are already integrated into so many businesses’ day-to-day activities. (The app’s name, after all, is an acronym for searchable log of all communication and knowledge, which seemed aspirational when it was coined a decade ago, but could become more apt with this announcement.)

“We hold an extraordinary amount of institutional knowledge on every project, topic, and team in your company,” Rayl said. “We also have a huge, robust partner ecosystem and a secure, trusted platform that customers use.”

However, Rayl said the company is also cognizant of potential client wariness when it comes to having internal data integrated into LLMs.

“Nobody wants their internal company data being tossed into a big LLM model and blasted out to the world,” Rayl said. “So what we’re thinking about is, how might we bring an LLM inside our infrastructure? How might we make individual models per customer?”

Slack’s announcement is part of a larger effort from Salesforce to integrate generative AI across its operations. The company demonstrated a slew of new generative AI features at an event in New York on Thursday, including assistance in writing emails, drafting marketing copy, and calling up sales data on individual customers.

Ketan Karkhanis, EVP and GM of Salesforce’s Sales Cloud, claimed the company spends a lot of time testing these features extensively in an effort to reduce their tendency to produce so-called hallucinations, or inaccurate information construed by AI.

“It feels like we are doing it really fast,” Karkhanis said. “But what you’re seeing is only 10% of what we can really do. We are being very measured and thoughtful in our approach to generative AI.”

Rayl said she expects to see enterprises figuring out where the technology fits best to fill their specific needs over the course of the next several months.

“The next six months are going to be really interesting as we see all sorts of different kinds of roles trying to adopt it to say, ‘These are the use cases that work great for us. This is what we’re pursuing now,’” Rayl said. “It’s really hard to say we’re all going to be in a year but this technology is moving pretty quickly.”