How to use 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 get answers to your questions, or choose from a variety of helpful prompts to get started even more quickly.
What to expect
- By default, all members of a workspace or Enterprise organization with access to Slackbot can use it. If you don’t see Slackbot, you might need to upgrade your plan or ask an owner or admin if they’ve restricted access to Slackbot.
- You can ask Slackbot to help with virtually anything — answering questions, finding information, generating content like meeting agendas and project plans, and more. Slackbot can also interact with other services connected to Slack like Google or Outlook Calendar, Salesforce, and enterprise search data sources.
- Responses from Slackbot are based only on the information you have access to in Slack. Slackbot is also protected by the Slack AI Guardrails, a built-in security framework designed to ensure privacy and security while using Slack AI features.
Ask Slackbot anything
Be clear and concise with your requests, but remember you can always ask follow-up questions or provide different instructions. When you need to ask Slackbot about something different, it’s better to start a new conversation than switch to a totally different topic in an existing one.
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 precise and clear, 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 first 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]. |
Start a conversation
Desktop
Mobile
- Click Slackbot at the top of the screen. You can also open Slackbot with Cmd Shift O (Mac) or Ctrl Shift O (Windows/Linux).
- Send your message or question.
- 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.
- If Slackbot tries to make edits to a shared canvas, you’ll need to click Confirm Canvas Update 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.
- Send your message or question. Depending on the complexity of your request, it may take Slackbot a minute to respond.
- As Slackbot works on generating a response, you can see the steps it's taking (like performing searches, checking your calendar, creating documents, etc.).
Tip: To start a new conversation when you already have Slackbot open, click New at the top of the screen (on desktop) or re-open Slackbot (on mobile).
Work with documents and files
Slackbot can analyze and summarize files, as well as create and edit them. Slackbot can read almost any file if you upload it or share a link, though there are a few size limits in place:
- PDFs up to 4.5 MB and less than 100 pages in length
- Images up to 30 MB (though any images over 3.75MB will be resized)
- Other files (like TXT or CSV) up to 1MB
Slackbot can create the following types of files:
- Canvases
- PDFs
- CSV files
- TXT files
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 at the top of the screen.
- 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.
Tip: Copy the link to any prompt to share it elsewhere in Slack, like a thread or a canvas.
View conversation history
You can always access previous conversations with Slackbot or re-open a thread to pick up where you left off. Here’s how:
Desktop
Mobile
- Click Slackbot at the top of the screen.
- Click the History tab.
- 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.
Manage Slackbot preferences
You can manage your Slackbot preferences to decide whether Slackbot responses show up in your Activity feed and Threads view:
- From your desktop, click your profile picture in the sidebar.
- Select Preferences.
- Select AI.
- Below Slackbot, check or uncheck the box next to the preference you'd like to manage.
Who can use this feature?
- All members except guests
- Available on the new version of Business+ and Enterprise+ plans
- Available on the legacy Business+, Enterprise Select, and Enterprise Grid plans with the Slack AI add-on