Following its $27.7bn acquisition of Slack in 2021, Salesforce has been exploring ways to use AI to closer integrate both platforms and improve user experience.
The firm introduced an incoming generative AI experience entitled Slack GPT at its Saleforce World Tour event last Thursday, which it claims can integrate multiple large language models into workflows.
What is Slack GPT?
Slack GPT is designed to help businesses access trusted customer data and essential employee knowledge, to help boost productivity in the workplace. The platform claims it will be able to direct the tone and length of messages composed directly in Slack, and even attend Huddles and summarise them on a person’s behalf.
The new generative AI experience has 3 main focus points:
- Integration of AI features
- Ability to customise automated workflows
- A dedicated Einstein GPT for Slack
Salesforce has added that it will be a while until users will have access to these new features, but they provide a glimpse into what we can expect over the next few months.
What can Slack GPT provide?
Slack GPT will provide users with enhanced tools for building customised workflows to program tasks using simple prompts. No coding experience will be required, and teams can also choose to integrate large language model (LLM) apps such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT (currently in beta) into this process.
To protect privacy, Salesforce claims that the LLMs won’t use data from their Slack apps to train their language models. Companies will have the option to integrate their own LLMs or software into the Slack ecosystem if they prefer for privacy purposes.
About Einstein GPT
Einstein GPT, a generative AI assistant also created by Salesforce, is also being adapted into a dedicated Slack app. Einstein GPT can access live customer information from trusted Salesforce Customer 360 data and the data cloud. Einstein GPT can also be integrated into Slack workflows to increase productivity, for example, to notify teams of new leads and updates to ongoing sales projects.
“Generative AI has enormous potential to redefine how work is done and unlock significant business productivity,” said Lidiane 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 own internal knowledge.”
Why does this matter?
With Salesforce co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff acquiring the company two years ago for a cool £28 billion, it’s hardly surprising the company are working round the clock to develop ways of making the two platforms more cohesive. At the time, Benioff described the acquisition as a “match made in heaven”, but it was also the most expensive software purchase of all time.
There are currently no fixed release dates for any of the new Slack GPT features. Both the Einstein GPT app for Slack and Slack GPT’s native AI features remain in development.