How to work with Slackbot
Navigate your workday with help from Slackbot, your personal agent for work. Slackbot has the same context and access to information you do, so answers are always relevant and personalized. Start a conversation to prepare for your next meeting, analyze that giant spreadsheet, or find just about anything (though maybe not your misplaced housekeys).
Why Slackbot?
Unlike other agents you work with inside or outside of Slack, Slackbot has direct access to all of the public information in your workspace or Enterprise organization (and any private information you can access). You can also build out its memory to help it learn how you work. With all of your context, Slackbot is ready to get to work so you can focus on what’s most important. Here’s a peek at some of the things Slackbot can do:
- View your Google or Outlook calendar and help you prep for meetings
- Send a daily recap of important messages and outstanding to-dos
- Create Google or PowerPoint presentations
- Search and take actions in Salesforce
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Automate tasks and use skills to execute complex processes
What to expect
- By default, all members of a workspace or Enterprise organization can use Slackbot. If you don’t see it, you might need to upgrade your plan or ask an owner or admin if they’ve restricted access.
- Responses from Slackbot are based only on information you can view in Slack, and no one using Slackbot can see anything they don’t have permission to view (like private channels or direct messages they aren’t a part of).
- Slackbot can help with just about anything. Get started by summarizing past conversations in advance of a planning session, creating a first draft of a new blog post, or tracking down that one message you need to follow up on. You can also use Slackbot to access information from Salesforce, third-party apps installed in your workspace, and enterprise search data sources.
- The number of messages you can send to Slackbot and which features you can use depend on your Slack plan. Visit Slackbot limits and credit usage for more details.
Note: Slackbot is protected by the Slack AI Guardrails, a built-in security framework designed to ensure privacy and security while using Slack AI features.
How to write great prompts
A prompt is a set of instructions you provide to Slackbot in order to get a specific response. The best prompts are short and precise, and include references to additional context you want Slackbot to consider in its response (like files, channels, or Salesforce records).
Example prompts
| Instead of this... | Try this! |
| What needs my attention? | Which direct messages or mentions do I need to follow up on this morning? |
| Make an agenda for my meeting with @name. | Create an agenda for my Thursday meeting with @name using the conversations in #channel-name from March 19 and our previous meeting notes [link to canvas]. |
| Tell me what’s going on with [project]. | What decisions were made in [link to thread] about [project name]? |
| How is [customer account] doing lately? | Can you summarize recent meetings with [customer account] and make a canvas for the quarterly business review scheduled next month? |
| Draft a project brief for launching [feature]. | Write a first draft of a project brief for the launch of [feature] using these resources — [link to slides], [link to product brief]. |
Tip: When it’s time to ask Slackbot about something new, it’s better to start a fresh conversation than switch to a totally different topic in an existing one.
Start a conversation
Desktop
Mobile
- Click Slackbot in the top-right corner of the screen or the top of your sidebar.
- Type your message or question, or click the microphone icon to dictate your prompt. Press Enter or click Send.
- As Slackbot works on generating a response, you can see the steps it’s taking (like performing searches, checking your calendar, creating documents, etc.). If Slackbot starts going in the wrong direction or you realize you need to ask a different question, click the Stop button.
- When Slackbot tries to make edits to a shared canvas, you’ll need to click Confirm before new content is added. If you click Cancel, it won’t make any changes.
- From the Home tab, tap Slackbot at the top of the screen.
- Type your message or question, or tap the microphone icon to dictate your prompt instead.
- As Slackbot works on generating a response, you can see the steps it's taking (like performing searches, checking your calendar, creating documents, etc.). If Slackbot starts going in the wrong direction or you realize you need to ask a different question, tap the Stop button.
Note: Slackbot voice dictation works with all Slack supported languages and many others, though it’s currently optimized for English. Dictated messages are transcribed, but audio data is not stored.
Search the web and use deep research
Slackbot can search the web so you don’t have to leave Slack in order to find information from outside your workspace. You can also turn on deep research to research complex topics across all available sources (channels and files, the web, Salesforce data, and connected MCP servers) and produce a comprehensive report, rather than a standard shorter response.
- From your desktop, click Slackbot in the top-right corner of the screen or the top of your sidebar.
- Slackbot will search the web automatically when prompted, as long as your admins have enabled the feature.
- To use deep research, click the plus button next to the message field and select Deep research.
- Describe what you’d like Slackbot to research, then send your request. It can take Slackbot up to 10 minutes to complete more complex requests.
Work with documents and files
Slackbot can analyze and summarize files, as well as create and edit them. Here are the types of files Slackbot is able to read:
- Canvases
- CSV and TXT (up to 1MB)
- Lists
- PDF (up to 4.5 MB or 100 pages in length)
- PNG, JPG, static GIF, webP, and HEIC images (up to 30 MB, though images over 3.75MB will be resized)
Note: Slackbot can only read Box files from direct links that start with https://company-name.app.box.com. It cannot access files shared from Box with links starting with https://company-name.box.com.
Share prompts
Crafting the perfect set of instructions for a particular task can take time. Once you’ve fine-tuned a prompt to work just the way you need, share it with others so they can use it too.
- From your desktop, click Slackbot in the top-right corner of the screen or the top of your sidebar.
- Type your prompt to start a new conversation with Slackbot, or open a previous conversation.
- Hover over the prompt and click Forward message.
- Select a channel or person from the drop-down menu, and add a message about the prompt you’re sharing if you’d like.
- Check the box next to Forward as prompt, then click Forward.
- Anyone who can see the message can click Send to Slackbot to start a conversation using your prompt.
View conversation history
You can always access previous conversations with Slackbot to find information or pick up where you left off. Conversations are named automatically, and you can rename them from Slack on desktop if you'd like.
Desktop
Mobile
- Click Slackbot in the top-right corner of the screen or the top of your sidebar.
- Click the History tab, or choose a conversation from the left sidebar.
- Select a conversation to re-read it or send a followup message.
- From the Home tab, tap Slackbot at the top of the screen.
- Tap History in the top-right corner.
- Select a conversation to re-read it or send a followup message.
Who can use this feature?
- All members with access to Slackbot
- Available on all plans (Slackbot access and limits vary by plan)