Slackbot, the automated assistant baked into the Salesforce-owned company messaging platform Slack, is coming into a brand new period as an AI agent. And Salesforce CTO Parker Harris hopes it is going to be as viral as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The cloud software program large rolled out the brand new model of Slackbot on Tuesday. This new AI agent model of Slackbot, which is usually out there for Enterprise+ and Enterprise+ clients, can discover info, draft emails, and schedule conferences, amongst different issues, all throughout the Slack platform, based on the corporate. It might additionally hook up with, and work together with, different enterprise merchandise like Microsoft Groups and Google Drive to seek out info if it’s granted permission. This permits customers to work throughout a handful of various widespread enterprise functions with out leaving Slack.
Salesforce, and its enterprise software program rivals, are pouring sources into the event of AI merchandise in a bid to protect, and even develop, their market share. The reworked Slackbot, which was initially introduced at Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce convention in October, is only one piece of Salesforce’s enterprise AI-heavy product plan.
Harris advised TechCrunch the next-gen Slackbot is totally completely different than what existed earlier than; the corporate stored the identify as a result of it’s already well-known.
Harris added that Slack doesn’t usually launch new options. As an alternative, Slack usually points updates to the product to assist drive adoption, which makes Slackbot fairly completely different from previous product updates.
“It’s an agent, it’s a tremendous agent that’s your worker agent,” Harris stated. “It’s powered by generative AI, and it’s one thing that’s extremely crafted and extremely curated to be an agentic expertise that staff and customers love.”
Salesforce checks new merchandise, like Slackbot, with its staff for months earlier than they launch them — Harris joked they prefer to drink their very own champagne first. Slackbot has been probably the most adopted inside instrument they’ve launched, he stated.
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“Simply seeing the sheer lively person depend is a superb signal now we have hit on product-market-fit,” Harris stated about inside adoption. “Adopted not mandated in companies.”
That is only the start of Slackbot’s second bloom as an AI agent, Harris stated. Sooner or later, they need Slackbot to maneuver past only a text-based agent solely in Slack. He stated they wish to add voice capabilities sooner or later and the flexibility for Slackbot to browse the web alongside its customers.
“I’m very assured that investing in Slackbot just isn’t solely good for Slack, it is going to be extremely good for all the firm,” Harris stated.
