An AI agent that works from your Slack channels
In Slack the work arrives as conversation. A client asks for something in a shared channel, three people react, and by Thursday nobody can say who took it. An AI agent can pick the requests out of the scroll, log them where they belong and chase them, and your people do the deciding.
Messages in the channels it is invited to, emoji reactions your people have agreed, and who has not filed a timesheet, update or claim.
Requests logged in your project or ticket system with a reply in the thread, direct-message reminders, and each lead's morning digest.
What Slack is and who runs it
Slack is a messaging platform made by Slack Technologies, a Salesforce company. Work is organised in channels, one for each project, client or team, with threads under each message, huddles for quick calls, and canvases and lists for notes and tasks.
The workspace owner is often a founder or an operations manager, and admins decide which apps may be installed. Day to day whoever leads each channel runs it, whether an account manager, a project lead or a service desk lead.
What an AI agent can do in your Slack workspace
Requests picked out of a channel
In a channel it has been invited to, the agent spots a request, logs it in your project or ticket system and replies in the thread with the reference. Anything that reads as a complaint or a change of scope goes to the account lead.
The Friday nudge, by direct message
People who have not filed a timesheet, a status update or an expense claim get a direct message, not a post in front of the whole channel. The agent repeats it at the intervals you set and tells the manager who is still late.
A morning digest for each lead
Before the day starts the agent posts a short summary to each lead: the threads in their channels still waiting for an answer, what was promised and by whom. It links to each message so the lead can reply in place.
An emoji that logs the task
Your people mark a message with an emoji you have agreed, such as a ticket. The agent sees the reaction, logs the message as a task in your project system with its link and owner, and replies in the thread to say so.
Roles that work in Slack
Helpdesk ticket triage
Logs a request posted in a channel as a ticket in your service desk and replies with its reference.
Timesheet chasing
Sends each late filer a direct message until the timesheet is in.
Social media drafting
Posts the week's draft posts in a channel, where a named person approves each one or replies with changes.
Enquiry and inbox triage
Sorts the shared inbox and passes each message that needs a person to that person in Slack, with a summary.
Sectors that run Slack
How the connection is set up
Slack publishes a Web API of more than 200 methods and an OAuth 2.0 flow for installing an app. The app asks for named scopes and the person installing it approves them. By default any member can; where owners have switched on app approval, they decide. The route is agreed with you at the start.
Slack keeps an app to what it was granted. It reads the history only of conversations it is a member of, and Slack limits how fast some apps may read that history. The agent is invited to the channels its role needs and no others.
Questions owners ask
Can the agent read our private channels and direct messages?
Only where it has been invited. Slack's API gives an app the history of conversations it is a member of, so a private channel stays private unless someone adds the agent to it. Direct messages between your people are not part of any role.
We share channels with clients. Will it speak to them?
Only if the role says so, and then in wording you have approved, such as confirming that a request was logged. Anything about price, scope or a deadline is drafted for the account lead, who sends it.
Does it replace the workflows we built in Workflow Builder?
No. A workflow runs the steps you gave it each time it is started. The agent takes on the request written as an ordinary message, the thread nobody answered and the chase afterwards, which a workflow does not catch.
Slack's own AI already recaps our channels. What does this add?
The agent acts on what it reads. Slack's AI summarises channels and threads and serves daily recaps on its paid plans. The agent, an Agent Resource managed for you like a member of staff, logs the request, chases whoever owes an answer and tells the lead what is open.