Slack Unveils AI-Powered Feature to Summarize Unread Messages – Here’s What You Need to Know

Slack, a cloud-based messaging service for businesses, recently underwent its largest redesign to enhance user experience. However, the company, now owned by Salesforce, is not stopping there. They are set to introduce a new AI-powered feature that will assist employees in quickly catching up on group or channel conversations after being away. This feature will provide users with a concise summary of the events that occurred during their absence.

According to the Axios report, the reason for using AI in this feature was two-fold. Rob Seaman, Slack’s product director, spoke with Axios and explained that the company felt there was a need for such a feature and understood that this is where generative AI could come in handy.

He said: “We decided to focus on moments like this that help you get back on track when you’ve either used a PTO, you’re new to something, or you’re having trouble finding something, because they’re just kind of at-home utilities that save time.”

Slack’s AI message summary feature

In today’s environment, as companies eagerly integrate generative AI capabilities into their products, the biggest challenge is identifying where the technology can actually be used in a way that minimizes its unreliability and maximizes its utility. This Slack feature does just that.

Users will also see links to specific messages that have been summarized, helping to eliminate the possibility of AI hallucinations and data misinterpretation. Users can simply review the message for better understanding.

The AI-powered conversation summary feature will soon be available as a limited pilot. The company has not revealed the exact release date.

Slack introduced Slack GPT, its original generative AI model, in May 2023. Company CEO Lidiane Jones said of the feature: “Generative AI has enormous potential to redefine how work is done. The real power of Slack GPT is that AI can operate on valuable data that comes from a company’s most trusted resources: its own internal knowledge.

At the time, the company said it planned to use artificial intelligence to compile conversation summaries and compose messages. Let’s assume that after the introduction of the conversation summary feature, an AI message draft feature similar to Gmail on Workspace could come next.