The Messaging app where tens of millions of office employees share memes and coordinate projects is quietly transforming into something rather more ambitious: a platform where AI agents work alongside humans as digital colleagues.
As a part of Salesforce comprehensive AI initiative announced on Tuesday Loose is evolving from a communications tool to what company officials call a “working operating system” — one where AI agents can join your meetings, summarize your conversations, create presentations, and even negotiate with other AI agents in your behalf.
“We were on the trail to what we call a piece operating system — one which simplifies the complexity of all of the systems you employ on daily basis,” Slack CPO Rob Seaman, who oversees the corporate’s AI integration, said in a press release Interview with VentureBeat. “While messaging and human interaction remain the main target, the system now offers access to automation and all of the apps you’ll want to do your work, in addition to AI agents, which we imagine can be critical players within the workplace.”
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The change is already visible in corporations similar to Accenturewhere customer managers deploy AI agents in Slack to dramatically reduce the time spent on administrative tasks. These agents can prepare for meetings, summarize discussions, and even draft proposals, all from the familiar Slack interface where employees already spend their workday.
“To be sure that these AI agents are widely deployed and continually improving, it is necessary to integrate them where humans already work,” Seaman explained.
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Unlike traditional chatbots or AI assistants that require users to go to separate web sites or apps, Slack's AI agents integrate directly into existing workflows. They appear in channels alongside human colleagues and will be accessed through natural conversation.
The system is designed to be accessible even to non-technical users. “There’s actually no code,” Seaman said. “From the tip user’s perspective, there’s really no technical work in your part.”
However, the impact on workplace dynamics is profound. In demonstrations, AI agents showed that they’ll independently plan meetings, analyze documents, create visualizations and even collaborate with other AI agents on complex tasks.
During Tuesday's presentation, for instance, an AI agent helped an Accenture executive getting back from vacation quickly find out about client activity, prepare for upcoming meetings and draft a proposal – tasks that will normally require hours of human effort.
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While Salesforce provides template agents for common business tasks, Seaman expects most corporations will customize their AI workforce to fulfill specific needs.
“We will provide ready-to-use templates that meet about 80% of most requirements, but we expect corporations to customize their AI agents for specific purposes,” he said. “We’ve already seen this pattern with Slack – corporations are inclined to heavily customize the platform to suit their needs.”
The company has built extensive security measures into the system. “The agents are acting in your behalf and don’t have any greater privileges than you might have,” Seaman explained. “You don't have god or admin rights… We don't create loopholes for the AI ​​to see things it shouldn't see.”
The Human-AI Partnership: Redefining Collaboration within the Workplace
For many employees, the prospect of AI colleagues raises concerns about job displacement. But Salesforce executives see it as an extension of human capabilities relatively than a substitute.
“It’s not about sharing the information,” said Claire Cheng, vice chairman of machine learning and engineering at Salesforce. “It’s about unlocking the complete potential of information to make it possible Agentforce to deeply understand your corporation and your customers and empower agents to take more practical motion.”
In the long run, Salesforce envisions much more sophisticated collaboration between human and AI employees. Future versions will allow multiple AI agents to collaborate on complex tasks, with specialized agents taking over different points of projects.
“Right now there’s a human evoking different agents,” Silvio Savarese, who leads Salesforce’s AI research, told VentureBeat. “In the long run, there can be an Orchestrator agent that calls various specialized agents that discuss with one another, collaborate, and perform tasks.”
This vision of the workplace – where humans and AI agents work seamlessly together through platforms like Slack – represents a fundamental shift in the best way paperwork is completed. And while the complete impact stays to be seen, one thing is evident: that office chat app where you've been sharing cat GIFs is about to get loads more powerful.
“We are at the start of the start,” said Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce. “When you're at the start of the start, you see these little things after which attempt to deduce what is going to come of them. This is an incredible moment.”
