Search with Slack AI

We take our commitment to protecting customer data seriously. Learn how we built Slack to be secure and private.

With Slack AI, you can ask a question in your own words and get a concise answer based on messages and files already in Slack. Slack AI search answers are unique to you — they’ll never contain messages or files you don’t have access to. To keep your data private, search answer data is never used to train large language models (LLMs).

What's included in AI search answers

Slack AI search uses only the data you already have access to in Slack to generate search answers. Starting August 14, 2024, Slack AI search answers will reference most types of files uploaded to Slack. Here's what will be included:

Included

Not included

• Messages from channels and direct messages (DMs)
• Message previews from links shared in Slack
• Information from articles in the Slack Help Center
• Files from channels and DMs including:
  • Slack files such as canvases, snippets, and transcripts from clips
  • Files uploaded from your computer, ex. PDFs, Microsoft Word documents, etc. 
  • Files shared in Slack from Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Sharepoint, and Box

• Images including screenshots, photos, or GIFs
• Embedded objects within a document (such as an image or chart)
• CSV files and spreadsheets, ex. Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel files

Note: By default, Slack AI will search files but owners and admins can restrict this if they’d like.

FAQs

Are searches used to train large language models (LLMs)?

No. Search queries or answers aren’t stored by third-party LLMs. 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.

Why don’t my search results contain files?

Some searches are better answered by message or other data contained in Slack, so not all search answers will contain files.