Understand AI apps in Slack

Some apps in the Slack Marketplace are built to include AI assistants or agents. These apps introduce a distinct messaging surface to the Slack desktop app that you can use to interact with third-party AI alongside your work in channels and direct messages (DMs). When you bring your AI tools into Slack, you can access their capabilities without switching platforms.

What you need to know

• Apps with AI assistants or agents can be built by third-party developers or by developers in your organisation, and are distinct from Slack AI.
• These apps can be installed from the Slack Marketplace and follow the same policies and guidelines as apps that do not feature AI components. 
• By default, any member can install apps with an AI assistant or agent, but owners and admins can enable app management to approve, restrict or review apps before they’re installed.
• Before installing an app with an AI assistant or agent from the Slack Marketplace, you can review its privacy policy and security and compliance information on the app page. We recommend only choosing services that you trust when installing apps to Slack.

Find apps

Browse AI-enabled apps in the Slack Marketplace

The AI assistants & agents category in the Slack Marketplace lists all apps with an interactive AI component. When you’ve found an app that you’d like to use, click the Add to Slack button on the app page. If you don’t have permission to install apps, you may be able to submit an app request instead.

View AI apps in your workspace

From Slack on your desktop, you can view any apps installed to your workspace by other members.

1. From your desktop, hover over   More in the sidebar, then select   Automations.
2. Click on Apps.
3. To filter for third-party apps with AI features, click on the   Filter icon, then select Agents & assistants from the drop-down menu.

Work with AI agents and assistants

Once you install an app with an agent or assistant, everyone in your workspace or organisation can start using it straight away. There are two places to interact with AI agents in Slack – in a built-in conversational surface alongside your channels and DMs, or from a tab in the App Home.

Send messages to the app

From an app’s App Home, you can start a new chat or view your AI agent chat history.

1. From your desktop, hover over   More, then select   Automations.
2. Select   Apps in the left-hand sidebar, then search for and select an app.
3. Click   New chat in the top-right corner to start a chat, or click the   Chat tab to resume an existing one.
4. To view your chat history, click on the   History tab.

Chat in a split view

To work in Slack and with an app's AI simultaneously, you can chat with an AI agent or assistant in a split view. When you select the AI Agent that you’d like to chat with from the top-right corner of Slack, the conversation will open alongside your channels and DMs.

1. Click on the app’s icon in the top-right corner of Slack. If you have multiple AI apps installed, click on the   down arrow to select a different app.
2. Select a prompt (if available), or send a message to get started.
3. To view your message history, click on the   history icon.

Manage which apps appear in Slack

When you install an AI app to Slack, you can choose to display it in the top-right corner of your desktop app for easy access. Owners and admins can manage which AI agents and assistants appear for everyone in their workspace or organisation, but you can choose to show any apps that your admins may have hidden from your preferences.

1. From your desktop, click your profile picture in the sidebar.
   
2. Select Preferences from the menu.
3. Click on   Navigation.
4. Under App agents & assistants, tick the box next to the app that you’d like to display. Untick the box to hide it.

Note: You can always chat with an AI agent or assistant in the app’s app home, even if you aren't displaying them in the top-right corner of Slack.

AI app security

Apps you add to Slack that include AI capabilities, such as agents and assistants, use the AI functionality specific to the third-party service. Slack does not use Slack AI or a large language model (LLM) for third-party apps with AI features. Rather, we provide a surface within your workspace or org that enables you to interact with external AI tools without leaving Slack.

• Apps with AI agents or assistants are built with specific scopes and API methods. Before installing an app to your workspace or org, it’s important to consider its scopes to understand the actions that the app can take, the data that the app can access and what it can do with the data once it has access. Owners and admins might consider enabling app approval on their workspace, or setting an app management policy for their Enterprise Grid organisation to ensure that an app manager reviews apps before members can install them.
• As with any app, the data that an AI model in an app you add to Slack can access will depend on its scopes. By default, it will have access to the data in your messages with the app. To grant the AI model access to data in your channels and DMs, you can add the app to any conversation, just like you would add a person to any channel in Slack. 
• Per our app guidelines, no customer data is used or retained to train third-party LLM models. Instead, we use a technique called retrieval augmented generation (RAG) that sends the data necessary for each task to the LLM at inference time only – no training required. Because this data is sent in the context of a single request, the LLM does not retain any of the data.
• All apps, assistants and agents available through the Slack Marketplace are reviewed by the Slack Marketplace team against our submission guidelines and they must adhere to a zero-copy and zero LLM training policy.

FAQ

Are AI apps different to apps built without AI?

No. Apps built with AI capabilities follow the same policies, development, distribution and review process as any app built for Slack. The scopes used in AI apps allow developers to incorporate their AI into apps that they build, but it does not change how the app interacts with Slack. 

Can I disable an app’s AI capability or limit its access?

No. An app’s AI capabilities are tied to the permission scopes that it uses. When installing an app, you can’t be selective with which permission scopes it can request. If an app contains scopes that you don’t want used in your workspace, you can enable app approval or set an app management policy to restrict it. If you install an app with AI capabilities that you no longer want, you can remove it.

I already have an app installed – will it be automatically updated if AI capabilities are added?

When a developer changes how their app works, you’ll need to grant permission for the new scopes by re-authorising the app’s connection to Slack. Until you update an app, its new capabilities won’t be available. 

Tip: Learn how to build your own AI agent app using Slack’s developer tools.