Slack is piloting a revamped version of Slackbot that acts more like an AI companion than a simple reminder system. Instead of just delivering notifications, the new Slackbot can create tailored plans, search for files and messages, summarize projects, and even schedule meetings.

“Slackbot today is fairly rudimentary,” said Rob Seaman, Chief Product Officer at Slack. “But what we’ve done is we’ve actually rebuilt it from the ground up as a personalized AI companion.”

With this update, Slackbot is becoming a more interactive and context-aware part of the Slack workspace. Users can click the Slackbot icon next to the search bar to open a right-side panel where they can type prompts like “What are my priorities for today?” or “Find the latest updates on a project.”

The upgraded assistant can pull information from Slack conversations, files, and channels to deliver personalized, actionable answers. In demonstrations seen by The Verge, Slack showed how the new Slackbot can organize a product launch plan using Slack Canvas, pulling relevant details from multiple channels, or even help design a social media campaign aligned with a brand’s tone.

One of the most practical upgrades is Slackbot’s natural language search. Slackbot will appear as an icon next to the search bar at the top of the workspace, and clicking it opens a DM-like panel on the right side of the screen where users can enter prompts in plain language. Instead of remembering keywords, users can ask contextual questions like, “Find me the document that Jay shared in our last meeting.” The AI assistant then locates and retrieves the exact file.

The assistant can also connect with Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar to schedule meetings, ensuring seamless coordination across tools. Combined with existing AI features that already summarize threads, decode company jargon, and save clicks, the new Slackbot represents a major leap toward a more intuitive AI workspace experience.

“We’ll keep putting those little touches there where they make sense, to save users a click,” Seaman said, hinting that Slack’s AI features will continue expanding in subtle but powerful ways.

Despite its AI-powered design, Slack emphasizes that data privacy remains central. The company says its AI features run through Amazon Web Services’ virtual private cloud, ensuring that “no data leaves the firewall, and no data is used in the training of the models at all,” according to Seaman.

While companies can choose to opt out of using the AI Slackbot, individual users within a workspace cannot disable it independently.

The upgraded Slackbot is already in use by 70,000 Salesforce employees, giving Slack’s parent company an early look at its performance and adoption. The tool is now being tested with external customers, with a full release planned by the end of 2025.

Slack’s redesign of Slackbot underscores the broader trend toward embedded AI copilots within productivity platforms—AI tools that understand context, automate workflows, and help teams make decisions faster without leaving their workspace.

Q1: What is changing about Slackbot?
A: Slackbot is evolving from a basic reminder system into a personalized AI assistant that helps users find information, create plans, and manage daily priorities.

Q2: How does the new Slackbot assist users?
A: It can gather content from Slack channels, messages, and files to create plans, summarize projects, and locate documents using natural language prompts.

Q3: Does Slackbot integrate with other tools?
A: Yes — the assistant connects with Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar to coordinate and schedule meetings directly within Slack.

Q4: How does Slack protect user data?
A: Slack’s AI features run on AWS’s virtual private cloud, ensuring that no user data leaves the firewall or is used to train external models.

Q5: When will the new Slackbot be available?
A: The AI Slackbot is currently in pilot testing and will roll out to all users by the end of 2025.

The evolution of Slackbot marks a pivotal moment in the shift from static productivity tools to context-aware AI assistants that anticipate what users need before they ask. By embedding AI intelligence directly into the Slack interface, the company is redefining what it means to “work inside a chat platform.”

Instead of simply responding to commands, the new Slackbot interprets intent, connects to third-party tools, and acts as an intelligent layer across daily workflows — transforming Slack from a messaging hub into an AI coordination platform. This means teams can spend less time searching for information or managing logistics and more time executing creative, strategic work.

The update also signals Salesforce’s broader vision to bring AI copilots into every layer of enterprise software — mirroring the trend across Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and other productivity ecosystems. By making AI assistance accessible directly within a company’s communication environment, Slack is positioning itself as a front-line player in how AI reshapes digital collaboration.

Ultimately, this is about trust and usability. Slack’s approach — running its AI models within AWS’s private cloud and keeping data inside company firewalls — addresses one of the biggest adoption barriers for enterprise AI: data privacy. If Slack’s rollout proves successful, it could become the model for how other platforms merge productivity, privacy, and predictive intelligence into a seamless, everyday workflow.

Editor’s Note: This article was created by Alicia Shapiro, CMO of AiNews.com, with writing, image, and idea-generation support from ChatGPT, an AI assistant used for research and drafting. However, the final perspective and editorial choices are solely Alicia Shapiro’s. Special thanks to ChatGPT for assistance with research and editorial support in crafting this article.