Slack’s New AI Search Targets a Familiar Pain Point: Too Many Apps, Not Enough Answers

Slack is turning more to artificial intelligence to streamline the daily grind at work. The Salesforce-owned company announced a range of new AI-powered features on Thursday to help teams “move faster, stay aligned, and focus on what matters.” One of the most significant improvements is the addition of enterprise-grade search that looks for information across connected apps.

Other AI updates include channel recaps and thread summaries, huddle meeting notes, translations, message explanations, action items, writing assistance in canvas, profile summaries, and a unified files view.

Daily AI usage among full-time workers has exploded by 233 percent in the first half of 2025, according to Slack’s recent Workforce Index. Those who use it regularly believe it gives them a competitive advantage, increases their productivity, and enhances their job satisfaction. Slack contends that organizations still fall short of achieving AI’s productivity promise. Today’s feature releases are all about cutting out the extra steps that slow people down.

One Search to Find Them All

Most Slack instances are likely connected with multiple third-party applications, such as Google Drive, Microsoft 365, and Salesforce. But, finding data across those platforms can be tedious—Slack’s research shows workers spend 41 percent of their time on these “low-value, repetitive tasks.” That’s where the new enterprise-grade search tool comes in.

Just as Slack has become the central hub for workplace conversations, it now aims to do the same for search. By positioning itself as the starting point for enterprise-wide discovery, it wants to become the “search engine of truth,” helping surface information scattered across multiple apps and data silos.

It’s a playbook similar to what other SaaS companies have followed. Atlassian, Dropbox, Glean, Moveworks, and HubSpot are a few examples that have built enterprise-grade search tools, enabling workers to easily search across multiple apps for content. In Slack’s case, workers can connect their instance with Asana, Box, Salesforce, Jira, GitHub, Confluence, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, and other apps. Then, using natural language, they can ask questions and receive answers in real-time, surfacing answers from this newly developed collective knowledge base. Results can include conversations, PDF files, images, and other data.

Like most tools today, Slack’s search results are generated by AI, and users can filter them by type and application. In a demo, a user chooses a Google Drive file. But instead of being directed to the Google Drive app, the information is presented within the Slack environment. This is the experience Slack hopes users will appreciate: A lack of context-switching. It’s also the premise behind all of the other new features announced today.

“Enterprise search is about turning fragmented information into actionable insights, helping you make quicker, more informed decisions, without leaving Slack,” the company explains in a blog post.

Automated Workflows, Writing Help, and Clarity, Oh My!

Piggybacking off of Slack’s new enterprise search engine is a slate of AI tools designed to help users work smarter, not harder. One area that will benefit is Canvas, Slack’s native document editor app. Soon, the app will feature AI assistance with writing assignments, including identifying key points and action items from Slack conversations, and serve as a notetaker—similar to Otter.ai and Fireflies.ai—for huddle meetings. It will assist in summarizing Slack threads to generate project briefs, developing and assigning action items from brainstorming sessions, transforming raw meeting notes into structured updates, and creating supporting documents from existing channels, messages, and documents.

In other words, instead of workers sifting through messy notes and scattered conversations, Slack’s AI takes on the heavy lifting, clearing the way for focus, creativity, and real productivity.

Slack is also planning on leveraging AI to help add clarity to your chats. The company says that instead of being left in the lurch when seeing an unfamiliar acronym or jargon in a message, you won’t need to hop over to your internet browser or ChatGPT to find out what’s going on. Users can hover their cursor over the message, and Slack’s AI will display an explanation, drawing from the workspace’s vocabulary and conversation history.

Besides clarity of jargon and definitions, Slack’s AI will also provide channel recaps, thread summaries, and AI-powered translations.

And if there’s an unfamiliar teammate you want to know more about, the app will soon support AI profile summaries, highlighting that worker’s role and recent work.

The Place Where Work Gets Done

While Slack may not be the first to roll out many of these features, its biggest advantage is ubiquity—it’s already where work happens for countless teams. Few communication platforms have its history. By integrating these AI-powered search, writing, and clarity features directly into Slack, the company aims to cement its position as the central hub for work. Rather than forcing users to toggle between multiple tools, Slack strives to provide a seamless, all-in-one experience where employees can access relevant information, collaborate effectively, and boost their productivity without leaving the familiar Slack environment. This strategic move positions Slack as an indispensable workplace platform, solidifying its role as the go-to destination where work gets done.

When Will These AI Features Be Available?

It’s a mixed bag of when the AI updates that Slack unveiled on Thursday will launch. Some features, such as enterprise search, channel recaps, thread summaries, huddle meeting notes, and translations, are now generally available. However, the tools focused on clarity—AI message explanations, action items, writing assistance in Canvas, profile summaries, and the unified files view—are only designated as “coming soon.”

Featured Image: Slack's AI-powered enterprise-grade search engine shows messages and files from connected apps, eliminating the need for context-switching. Credit: Slack