Slack Deploys ChatGPT to Give Platform Superpowers

The much-hyped chatbot comes to Slack's messaging platform to integrate with 2,600 other integrations and serve millions of businesses

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Slack Deploys ChatGPT to Give Platform Superpowers
Unified CommunicationsLatest News

Published: March 7, 2023

Jonny Wills

Senior Editor

Slack has announced that it will introduce the ChatGPT app for its platform and help increase efficiency for its estimated 10 million-plus daily users.

Built by OpenAI, Slack GPT integrates ChatGPT’s powerful AI technology to provide instant conversation summaries, research tools, and writing assistance within Slack, powering millions of businesses with their productivity.

“OpenAI has been a great Slack customer, and we’re even more excited for them to be an amazing Slack partner,” stated Noah Desai Weiss, Chief Product Officer at Slack. “The ChatGPT app for Slack deeply integrates the power of OpenAI’s cutting-edge large language models into Slack’s conversational interface.

“This will give customers new superpowers by helping them tap the collective knowledge of their organisation’s channel archives. We’re excited to partner with OpenAI to bring more generative AI powers into Slack to deliver productivity efficiencies for everyone.”

Working with over 2,600 integrations in the app ecosystem, the ChatGPT app will give customers controls to manage third-party access to Slack data. However, data that the app can access will not be used to train ChatGPT’s language model.

How ChatGPT Works in Slack

According to the firm, Slack GPT, users can:

  • Get up to speed faster on channels or threads: AI-powered conversation summaries enable users to catch up on what’s happening almost instantaneously.
  • Automatically find answers on any project or topic: with AI-powered research tools, users can learn and build expertise faster right from Slack — whether they’re researching best practices, prospecting a new account, discovering further information or anything related to the work in front of them.
  • Quickly draft messages to communicate with customers and teams: writing assistance using ChatGPT means users can spend less time crafting replies, status updates, and meeting notes — and more time putting the plan in action. Using ChatGPT Slack, users can receive emails and responses the bot suggests. Users only need to modify or personalise them to their professional tastes.

The chatbot integration for the platform equates to a copilot for a workflow, where a long-winded task can be shortened, and additional information can boost the quality of the effort.

For example, before a typical Slack meeting there will be account history and lots of dialogue to sift through to understand what is about to be discussed. Users can leverage ChatGPT to summarise the thread, fish out the core objectives and key stakeholders, and work out what is at the forefront of customers’ needs.

Users can continue by drilling deeper using the ChatGPT app, asking questions on topics to be raised in the meeting. The new AI tech means the ability to leverage information to understand a task better, coupled with the facility to tap into the company’s collective brain using Slack. The processes are quick and easy and the user doesn’t have to leave the platform.

Industry Buzz and Adoption of ChatGPT

The timing of the move by the Salesforce-owned Slack comes amidst a flurry of global excitement, with 100m+ users signing up to use the AI tech and many citing its potential for the UC&C space. Microsoft has already incorporated OpenAI features into its new Teams Premium licence.

It also follows from Microsoft and Google announcing they will release more AI products with search engines Bing and Bard, respectively. Bing has just removed the chatbot feature in what is now being assumed as a trial for the search engine.

Other early adopters of the OpenAI technology include Snapchat creators Snap, Global learning platform Quizlet, Instacart and Shopify.

OpenAI Uses Slack Connect

OpenAI chose Slack as its productivity platform to boost employee productivity and has sent over 5 million messages with 170+ Slack Connect channels connecting directly to their customers.

Speaking about Slack’s adoption and a relationship where each firm uses the other’s products, Zack Kass, Head of GTM for OpenAI, commented: “I love Slack Connect so much. We were very early adopters, and, alongside Huddles, it’s been the lifeblood of our customer communications. I think it’s the coolest workspace communication advancement ever.

“Injecting our technology into this product has supercharged our ability to connect with and delight our customers. Life without it with our customers is unimaginable.”

Recent Changes at Slack

The release of the AI integration comes after Slack recently had some personnel changes. Slack founder and CEO Stewart Butterfield left in January and was replaced by Lidiane Jones, an Executive Vice President at Salesforce.

Tamar Yehoshua, Slack’s Product Chief, and Jonathan Price, SVP of Marketing, Brand and Communications, also left.

Salesforce acquired Slack in July 2021 for  $27.7bn and subsequently integrated Slack’s technology into its Customer 360 CRM suite after the deal. Salesforce also changed over its chat app and installed the Slack platform for its 80,000 employees.

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