Ever step away from your computer only to come back to a deluge of messages in a Slack channel? Soon you can be overtaken with the click of a button. On Thursday, Slack’s parent company, Salesforce, announced Slack GPT: generative AI that works natively in everyone’s favorite work app.
First we need to clarify something. In March (which feels like years ago in AI time), Slack announced a ChatGPT bot that can be added to the platform as an integration, like Giphy or Google Calendar. With ChatGPT for Slack, you can talk to the bot as you would a member of your team and ask it to do things for you, like summarize a thread or compose a message. But Slack GPT is different because it is embedded in the core features of the app.
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Generative AI tools like ChatGPT are touted as the ultimate productivity tool. In seconds, large language models (LLMs) can generate code, summarize long documents, and compose human texts, all from simple prompts. Companies like Slack are seizing the opportunity to develop products around the revolutionary technology. Work tools like Zoom and Grammarly have also jumped on the AI bandwagon.
Slack GPT will have features that can be integrated into the app’s native interface, as well as no-code tools to customize workflows. Next to the button that shows unread messages, you can click “Summary” to get an overview of what you missed. If you’re in a group, Slack GPT can generate a summary from the audio transcript and post it in the chat. You can also use Slack GPT to compose messages and adjust tone, which also works within Canvas, Slack’s digital whiteboard for planning and collaboration.
Slack’s AI tools are designed to be highly customizable. Companies can use ChatGPT, Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude, or use their own LLMs or proprietary software to prevent sensitive data leaks (cough, cough, Samsung). If users do use ChatGPT or Claude, their data will not are used to train the model.
But you also don’t have to be a developer to set up custom Slack GPT workflows, such as notifying users when a new customer lead comes in, composing an email response, or sharing it in Canvas. The Workflow Builder tool has very user-friendly buttons to create such a sequence.
ChatGPT and Claude for Slack are both available to install now and Workflow Builder will launch this summer.
Unfortunately, Slack users will have to wait a bit longer for the native features, due out later this year. I think we’ll have to use our own human brains until then.