How to: Choose the Best AI Assistant for Your Team

Companies generate massive amounts of data across multiple channels that can support their employees and help streamline their day-to-day work — but it’s not always easy to find. In fact, Gartner found that 47% of digital workers struggle to find the information they need to perform their jobs effectively.

Luckily, AI assistants are transforming the way teams operate, including how they retrieve information. They can instantly surface relevant details buried in company data, automate routine tasks, and provide insights to drive better decision-making.

With so many tools available, choosing the best AI assistant for your needs requires a strong understanding of how these tools work, what features can support your business in the short and long term, and where to apply them. Here’s what you need to know.

What is an AI assistant?

An AI assistant is a tool that helps automate tasks and make processes more efficient. What sets it apart from basic automation is its ability to understand natural language, learn from conversations, and provide help tailored to specific needs and situations.

How AI assistants support business operations

AI assistants can help teams with much more than basic tasks like scheduling meetings or setting reminders. They can analyze large amounts of data, pull relevant insights, provide answers to complex questions, and automate workflows.

For example, a digital assistant might help a sales team quickly find details about past customer interactions, assist engineers with troubleshooting technical issues by analyzing previous incident reports, or help HR teams smoothly onboard new hires by giving them immediate answers to common questions.

The right AI assistant should integrate seamlessly with the applications you already use — from project management to internal collaboration to customer relationship management tools and beyond. This way, it can learn from your company data and surface key information within security and privacy controls. Instead of functioning as a standalone tool, your AI assistant should act as an intelligent teammate, helping your teams get more done within their existing workflows.

How do AI assistants work?

AI assistants use a mix of technologies to understand and respond to requests. They can browse through your company’s tools and apps, but only access data they’re allowed to see. You can talk to an AI assistant just like you would a colleague. While most conversations are text-based, many of today’s AI assistants also support voice commands, letting you speak your requests naturally.

Here’s how an AI assistant performs a request:

• It searches through relevant resources. These are only sources you’ve given AI access to, like conversation histories, shared documents, or connected business applications.
• It uses natural language processing (NLP). NLP lets the AI understand the context and intent of a query, going beyond only keyword matching to figure out what you want to achieve.
• It applies machine learning (ML). Using ML to analyze the information it finds, AI assistants can draw connections and identify patterns to help provide you with a more accurate and useful response.
• It generates a response. Based on its analysis, the assistant will generate a clear and actionable reply — whether that’s answering a question, summarizing information, or completing a requested task.

Advanced AI assistants go beyond simply finding and organizing existing information. Using generative AI, they can create new content and insights, from writing emails and reports to analyzing trends and suggesting solutions to complex problems. Over time, they gain a deeper understanding of your specific needs, communication style, and work patterns to better support team and business goals.

5 common ways businesses use AI assistants

A global survey from the Workforce Lab at Slack found that employees report spending 33% of their day on tasks they consider low value. It also found that among workers who use AI tools, 81% say it’s improving their productivity.

AI assistants can support employees by reducing the time and effort spent searching for information, automating routine tasks, and generating rapid insights for better decision-making. The best AI assistant naturally integrates into your existing workflows instead of acting as a standalone tool. When properly implemented, it becomes a valuable digital colleague that helps everyone get more done within the work operating system they already use.

Here are some of the most impactful ways companies are using AI assistants today:

1. Knowledge sharing

Better knowledge-sharing practices help teams quickly find crucial information. When a new team member joins a project, an AI assistant can help them get up to speed instantly by providing a summary of key project details — without interrupting colleagues or wading through weeks of project history.

2. Meeting and conversation management

AI assistants can help ensure important details aren’t lost. Teams can automatically generate conversation summaries, create task lists, and make information easily searchable for future reference. This helps teams stay aligned while saving valuable time typically spent taking notes.

3. Faster data analysis

By using AI assistants to quickly analyze large data sets and identify patterns and insights, teams can make better decisions. Customer support teams can quickly spot and resolve common issues using AI to analyze support tickets. Additionally, sales teams can get rapid insights about account histories and customer interactions to better prepare for meetings.

4. Workflow automation

Teams can streamline routine tasks by creating standard responses for frequent requests, organizing incoming information, and creating automated workflows for common processes. For example, instead of filling out a lengthy IT form to replace a lost device, Slack users can call upon Agentforce — an autonomous AI assistant integration from Salesforce — from within a channel for immediate help.

5. Rapid problem-solving

AI assistants help teams find solutions faster. They can promptly surface relevant past interactions, customer history, and project documentation to efficiently resolve problems as they arise.

Key features to look for in an AI assistant

Since each organization has different needs, it’s important to understand which AI assistant features will help you achieve your goals. Consider the following capabilities:

• Search and understanding. Your AI assistant should understand complex queries, be able to simultaneously search across multiple data sources, and continuously learn to improve accuracy. This allows teams to quickly find relevant information from the organization’s full knowledge base.
• Security and access controls. AI assistant tools must enable control over who can access specific information, maintain clear audit trails, and handle data according to your organization’s privacy and security requirements. This ensures sensitive information stays protected while also being accessible to authorized team members.
• Integration. Look for native integration with your work operating system and connections to common business applications. For example, Slack AI for developers enables custom integrations with access to existing AI business tools in Slack.
• Customization. You should be able to train your AI assistant on company terminology and scenarios, adjustable responses based on business context, and support for multiple languages and regional settings. An AI assistant should also be able to modify its behavior as your organization evolves.
• Team collaboration. Make it easy to share insights, support collaborative problem-solving, maintain context across conversations, and efficiently share and manage knowledge. AI assistants can help teams work better together while preserving important information.
• Performance and scalability. Ensure reliability and efficiency as your organization grows. Look for tools that show consistent performance during heavy usage, support for multiple teams, regular updates, and reliable uptime.

Steps for choosing the best AI assistant

Carefully consider your organizational goals and team needs before selecting an AI assistant. Here’s a strategic approach for making the best choice.

Step 1: Identify your needs and primary use cases

Define what it is you want your AI assistant to do. Some organizations need assistance with administrative tasks like scheduling meetings, drafting correspondence, and email management. Others may seek strategic support from a digital teammate — handling data analysis, reporting, or even project management.

Make a list of your most time-consuming tasks, such as time spent searching for or synthesizing information, and determine which workflows could benefit most from AI support.

Step 2: Assess your resources and equipment

Take stock of your tech stack. Review your existing tools and apps that will need to integrate with a virtual assistant. Figure out where your company’s knowledge and data currently live. This will determine how effectively your assistant can access or use this information. Flag any infrastructure requirements or limitations that might be a barrier to successful implementation.

Step 3: Compare options

Look for options with features that can handle each of your use cases. If you’re looking for help with customer support, focus on features like knowledge base integration and conversation analysis. If you need help with incident management, real-time summarization and the ability to quickly surface relevant historical solutions will come in handy. Security features and privacy controls should be a given no matter the solution you choose.

Step 4: Evaluate ease of use

Look for an interface that feels natural and fits into your existing workflows. Keep in mind how different team members will interact with AI tools, and factor in what level of training might be needed. The best AI assistant should be easy to start using right away while offering advanced features that teams can grow into.

Step 5: Check reviews and testimonials

Learn from others’ experiences with AI tools, especially those in organizations similar to yours. Check out case studies from companies in your industry and look out for specific examples of successful implementation. Consider both initial setup experiences and long-term satisfaction. Search for evidence of strong customer support and ongoing development — these are signs that the tool will continue improving over time.

Slack AI assistants

There are many AI assistant tools available to fit your needs. But the best ones will integrate with your existing tech stack so you can act on your data in one place. For example, Slack AI users can seamlessly integrate Agentforce into their existing tools and workflows to enhance operations and boost efficiency. Here are some other ways it can benefit your business:

• Streamlined workflows. Sales teams can bring key CRM insights into Slack with Agentforce. AI agents can search structured Salesforce data and unstructured Slack conversations at once to give your reps a fuller picture of accounts and deal progress. Agents can also summarize cases and send deal status updates, provide recommendations for next steps, and automate routine tasks like drafting emails and scheduling meetings.
• Easy knowledge sharing. Slack AI innovations make it easy to find and manage information so teams can work smarter and faster. Teams can use tools like AI-powered search and summarization to get clear, focused answers based on your organization’s collective knowledge as well as key points from meetings, project channels, and more.
• More support, higher productivity. Give your agents the ability to execute tasks like creating channels, updating canvases, sending messages, and more in Slack. Stay in control by setting rules around the actions they can take to keep them on track and measure their progress. Once you create agents with specialized skill sets — such as administrative assistance or customer service support — your employees can interact with them in Slack to get help with key activities.

Implementing AI assistants

Any new AI assistant tool you choose should come with a clear implementation plan and training as needed. You may want to start with a limited pilot program to test any integrations and gather feedback before rolling the solution out to the entire organization. Teams should understand how to use the AI tool’s core features and how to incorporate them into daily workflows for better results. Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to keep tabs on adoption rates, satisfaction, and success, and be ready to adjust your approach based on what you learn.

Do more with AI on your team

By thoughtfully selecting and implementing an AI assistant tool that meets your needs, you can help your teams spend less time hunting for answers or working on low-value tasks and more time on work that drives value for your company. AI assistants can help your team become more collaborative, efficient, and agile while helping you make better business decisions.

Learn more about what Agentforce and Slack can do for your company.