Salesforce transformed its workplace assistant Slackbot from a basic notification tool into a full AI agent that can search enterprise data, write documents and take actions for employees. The overhaul, now available to Business+ and Enterprise+ customers, positions Slack at the heart of the agentic AI movement and escalates the competition with Microsoft and Google in workplace artificial intelligence.
From Simple Bots to Autonomous Agents
The original Slackbot handled basic tasks like reminders and channel suggestions. The new version runs on a large language model and a sophisticated search engine that connects to Salesforce records, Google Drive files, calendar data and years of Slack conversations. Salesforce co-founder Parker Harris said the old Slackbot was a tricycle and the new one is a Porsche. The company kept the Slackbot name because users already know it.
Why This Matters
Businesses that rely on Slack now gain an AI assistant deeply woven into their daily workflows. Employees can ask Slackbot to synthesize customer feedback, summarize documents and even act on their behalf. The agent respects permissions and does not train on confidential data, addressing a major privacy concern. Internal tests at Salesforce showed that two-thirds of employees tried the new Slackbot and 80 percent of those continued using it regularly. Users reported saving between two and 20 hours per week.
Anthropic's Claude Powers Slackbot, With More Models Coming
The new Slackbot runs on Anthropic's Claude model, chosen partly because it met FedRAMP Moderate compliance requirements for government customers. But Salesforce plans to support additional providers later this year. Harris said Google's Gemini is a likely addition and OpenAI remains a possibility. He echoed CEO Marc Benioff's view that large language models are becoming commodities similar to CPUs. Salesforce does not train any models on customer data, a policy Harris said is essential to protect security.
