With Slack GPT, built-in AI features are being developed natively for Slack that can help increase productivity without disrupting how users actually interact with the platform. Some examples include pitching the tone and length of composed messages directly in Slack and even having Huddles come up for you, summarizing them along with any unread messages you might have missed.
Introduced at Thursday’s Salesforce World Tour event, Slack GPT is a new generative AI experience that has three main focus points: the aforementioned natively built AI features, customizable automated workflows, and a custom Einstein GPT implementation for Slack. It will be a while before any of these features are available to everyday Slack users, but today’s announcements at least offer a glimpse of what we can expect in the months ahead.
In addition, Slack GPT will provide users with enhanced tools for building custom workflows to automate tasks with simple prompts – no coding experience required. Teams can also choose to integrate Large Language Model (LLM) implementations such as Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s ChatGPT (currently in beta) into the process. Salesforce claims that Anthropic and OpenAI won’t use any of the data from Slack apps to train their language models, though the companies also have the option of integrating their own software or LLM into the Slack ecosystem if privacy is a concern.
Finally, Einstein GPT — the generative AI assistant built by Salesforce — is also being adapted into a custom Slack app. Because Einstein GPT can access live customer information from trusted Salesforce Customer 360 data and Data Cloud, it can be integrated into Slack workflows to automatically notify teams of new leads or updates to ongoing sales projects. Salesforce dropped a cool $27.7 billion to acquire Slack back in 2021, so it’s no wonder the company is developing ways to make the two platforms more cohesive.
“Generative AI has huge potential to redefine how work gets done and unlock significant productivity for businesses,” said Lydian Jones, CEO of Slack. “The real power of this technology is when AI can analyze and act on the most valuable data from a company’s most trusted resource — its inside knowledge.”
There are currently no firm release dates for any of these Slack GPT features. The new Workflow Builder is expected to arrive sometime “this summer”, and both the Einstein GPT implementation of Slack’s features and the native Slack GPT for AI are still in development.