Slackbot Becomes an AI Agent

Slackbot, the automated assistant built into Slack, is entering a new phase as an AI-powered agent, according to its parent company Salesforce. Salesforce CTO Parker Harris said he hopes the revamped Slackbot will achieve viral adoption similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT.

Salesforce rolled out the new version of Slackbot on Tuesday. The AI agent–powered Slackbot, which is generally available to Business+ and Enterprise+ customers, can perform tasks such as finding information, drafting emails, and scheduling meetings directly within Slack. According to the company, Slackbot can also connect to and interact with other enterprise tools, including Microsoft Teams and Google Drive, provided it has the appropriate permissions. This enables users to work across multiple enterprise applications without leaving Slack.

Salesforce and its competitors in the enterprise software market have been investing heavily in AI-driven products to protect and expand their market positions. The redesigned Slackbot, first announced at Dreamforce in October, represents one component of Salesforce's broader enterprise AI-focused product strategy.

Harris said that the next-generation Slackbot is fundamentally different from earlier versions, though the company retained the name to leverage its strong brand recognition. He added that Slack typically focuses on iterative updates rather than traditional feature launches, making Slackbot's evolution distinct from past product changes.

"It is an agent, it is a super agent that is your employee agent," Harris said. "It's powered by generative AI, and it is something that is highly crafted and highly curated to be an agentic experience that employees and users love."

Salesforce internally tested the updated Slackbot for several months before releasing it publicly. Harris joked that the company likes to "drink its own champagne" before launch. He said Slackbot has become the most widely adopted internal tool Salesforce has released to date.

"Just seeing the sheer active user count is a great sign we have hit product-market fit," Harris said, noting that adoption was voluntary rather than mandated within the company.

Harris said this marks only the beginning of Slackbot's second phase as an AI agent. Over time, Salesforce plans to expand Slackbot beyond a purely text-based experience within Slack, potentially adding voice capabilities and enabling the agent to browse the internet alongside users.

"I am very confident that investing in Slackbot is not only good for Slack," Harris said, "it will be incredibly good for the entire company."