This development means that businesses of various sizes can now benefit from a trusted and intuitive generative AI experience, integrated natively on the secure platform where their work is already conducted.

The new features of Slack AI include:

• A recap feature that provides a daily morning digest with summaries of channels a user has selected to follow but might not always have time to check immediately. Once a channel is added to the recap, the user will receive a daily summary of any missed content. Slack AI assists users in beginning this process with personalised recommendations of channels to add, based on their activity on Slack.
• Search answers that offer personalised, intelligent responses to conversational queries. Users receive clear and concise answers in plain language, with direct citations to relevant Slack messages, enabling them to verify the information and explore further if desired.
• Conversation summaries that produce highlights from accessible channels and threads. Users can catch up on unread messages, summarise activities from the past seven days, or set a custom date range for summaries. Each summary includes clear sources, allowing users to delve deeper into any highlight.

The importance of this development is underscored by an internal analysis that suggests customers save an average of 97 minutes per user each week by using Slack AI to find answers, distil knowledge, and generate ideas. Despite this, while 94% of executives recognise the urgent priority of integrating AI into their organisations, only one in four desk workers report having used AI tools at work, according to recent research by the Workforce Lab from Slack.

From large enterprises to small businesses, customers are utilising Slack AI to prioritise essential information as needed. Wayfair, which replaced its messaging software with Slack in 2016, now employs Slack AI to more efficiently distil its collected data. The global retailer enhances its search capabilities to pose questions in natural language and receive concise answers from relevant channels, bypassing the need to sift through extensive messages.

“As Wayfair scales globally, we want to find information quickly so people can spend less time catching up and more time delivering. With Slack AI’s compelling features, we’re empowered to do just that,” said  Asad Rahman, Director of Employee Tech, Wayfair

“Slack AI gets people accurate information faster, from any channel. When employees don’t have to do as much tedious research, it translates to a happier and more productive workforce,” commented Taylor Keck, Senior Engineer, Enterprise Solutions, Wayfair

Beyond Better Foods uses Slack as its primary communication platform. As a healthy dessert brand, their operations team uses Slack AI’s enhanced search capabilities to fast-track answers for logistics planning and recaps to keep track of select channels, saving time and keeping them focused.

“Slack is crucial for us. The enhanced search capabilities of Slack AI have been really helpful to fast-track answers, especially when it comes to logistics. When I need to get my CEO a fast answer at 2 p.m. on a Friday, I can use Slack AI’s search function. I’ve only been using Slack AI for about a month, but it’s already helped me quickly find answers countless times, and is saving me at least 30 minutes a day,” commented Andy Kung, VP of Operations, Beyond Better Foods

“Recaps are incredibly promising. My daily digest accurately distils all of my key impact areas, including fulfilment topics and action items, as well as logistics plans,” commented Andy Kung, VP of Operations, Beyond Better Foods

HR provider ProService Hawaii employees use Slack AI conversation summaries to stay informed and catch up after attending multiple back-to-back meetings.

What’s next: In development, Slack AI's search and summarisation capabilities will tap into new data sources – including files, Slack apps, canvases, and clips – to enhance the breadth and depth of context that Slack AI can access. For example, Slack AI will help users get more value out of huddles, Slack’s feature for lightweight audio or video calls. Slack AI will deliver a summary of key takeaways and action items, making it easy to turn live discussions into next steps.

Slack will also become the best place for users to engage with assistants. This includes an integration with Einstein Copilot, a conversational AI assistant for Salesforce CRM. Users will be able to bring AI-powered CRM insights directly into Slack so they can talk to Salesforce data as easily as they talk to their teams.

Trust and security: Slack AI runs on Slack’s infrastructure and upholds the same security practices and compliance standards that customers expect from Salesforce. Slack AI’s large language models (LLMs) are hosted in Slack’s own virtual private cloud (VPC), ensuring customer data remains in-house and exclusively for that organisation’s use. Customer data will not be used to serve other clients, directly or indirectly, and Slack AI does not use customer data for LLM training purposes.