Salesforce has announced a new version of Slackbot, its virtual assistant built into Slack, now equipped with generative capabilities thanks to the Claude model developed by Anthropic. The upgrade enables the tool to answer users' questions by drawing on data in Slack as well as other connected services such as Google Drive, Box, Confluence and Salesforce, while respecting the access rights in place.

Aimed at Business+ and Enterprise+ subscribers, the enhanced Slackbot is designed to compete with the artificial intelligence tools already offered by Microsoft and Google. Internally, the tool is already said to be widely adopted, according to co-founder Parker Harris, who says he uses it daily to prepare for meetings. The assistant was designed to prevent executives, such as CEO Marc Benioff, from turning to external AIs like ChatGPT to handle internal documents.

The initiative comes as Salesforce seeks to reassure investors about its AI strategy, with its shares down 18% over a year, bucking the Nasdaq. Harris dismisses the idea that AI assistants could replace tools like Slack, pointing to their lack of direct connections to companies' internal systems. Rapid adoption of the new Slackbot could also strengthen Slack's place within Salesforce's cloud offering, one of the group's most dynamic businesses.

Finally, the rollout of this Slackbot coincides with changes at the top of the company: Denise Dresser, Slack's former CEO, has joined OpenAI, while Rob Seaman is serving as interim head. Customers such as publisher Engine already report significant productivity gains thanks to the assistant, which in particular helps prevent important messages from being missed at the end of the day.