Salesforce is transforming its operations with a focus on artificial intelligence, demonstrated at a recent San Francisco event where CEO Marc Benioff and colleagues introduced an enhanced version of Slack packed with new AI capabilities. Central to this update is a major upgrade to its AI assistant, Slackbot. The rollout includes 30 features set to launch in the near future, building on January improvements that enabled Slackbot to perform autonomous tasks such as composing emails, arranging meetings, and filtering inboxes for key details.

A standout addition is what the company terms reusable AI skills. These allow users to design specific functions for Slackbot that, once established, can be utilized across numerous situations. While Slackbot includes a pre-built collection of AI skills, employees can also develop personalized versions. After configuration, these skills dramatically cut down on manual effort. For instance, typing a straightforward command like “create a budget” for an event will instruct Slackbot to gather all pertinent data from a company’s Slack channels and linked applications, formulating a ready-to-use plan. The bot will then autonomously schedule a meeting to review the plan, inviting appropriate staff based on their roles.

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Slackbot now also serves as an MCP (Model Context Protocol) client, enabling it to interface and collaborate with external services and tools. This includes integration with Agentforce, Salesforce’s AI agent development platform introduced in 2024. Through this link, it can “route work or prompt questions to Agentforce or any agent or app in your enterprise,” directing information along the most suitable and efficient route automatically.

According to Rob Seaman, Slack’s interim CEO and former chief product officer, Slackbot can now record and condense meetings. If an attendee loses focus and misses important points, they can simply request a summary from Slackbot, complete with any assigned action items. The agent also extends its functionality beyond Slack, observing desktop activities—Salesforce notes it utilizes data from “your deals, your conversations, your calendar, and your habits.” Using this context, the bot offers practical suggestions or drafts follow-ups for urgent tasks. Seaman emphasized that privacy safeguards are integrated into this system, with options for users to modify permissions as required.

Ultimately, Salesforce is pushing Slack to evolve from a corporate messaging service into a more flexible platform capable of managing a broader range of business operations. The strategy appears to be that by infusing it with AI, Slack can become essential to the fundamental workflows of enterprise users. Benioff allowed his team to showcase the key features at the event, noting in his keynote that the five years since Salesforce purchased Slack have been an “incredible journey,” yielding “two and a half times revenue growth.” He added, “We have about a million businesses running on Slack. It’s been a huge growth story.”