Slack's new AI-powered assistant aims to streamline your busy work week

Mondays aren't always just about the start of the work week. They can also introduce new updates that shape the week ahead. Case in point: Slack will receive multiple features that collectively aim to help collect information and streamline workflow.

There are five in total, but we're focusing on the three most impactful features. First, we have Agentforce -- an AI assistant that can be used to ask questions or give instructions in a conversational manner. According to the announcement, Agentforce provides status updates on cases, "recommend next steps, draft emails, [make] action plans… and more." It can even roleplay certain sales scenarios to help you practice your negotiation skills.

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Agentforce won't be available just yet. Salesforce, Slack's parent company, will release the assistant in a beta state next month. 

Next on the docket are the three new Slack AI-enhanced tools. Huddle Notes is a summarization feature that jots down real-time audio and messages from a huddle thread into a transcript. The text comes complete with citations, action items, and files. Anyone who was in the huddle can view the notes at any time. 

Workflow Builder lets you do exactly as the name suggests: make workflows to help with tasks. For instance, supervisors could instruct the Builder to send out welcome messages to team members whenever they join a channel.

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Additionally the internal search engine is getting an upgrade. The answers it generates will contain information from uploaded files, video transcripts, Google files, Slack canvases, and other sources. These tools are available right now as a "paid add-on for all paid Slack plans."

Lastly, Salesforce will roll out Slack templates next month. These are pre-made configurations you can add to a channel before opening it. One template, as an example, lets you add "a standardized brief in a canvas, a project plan in a list, [plus] an automated workflow" right from the get-go.

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As for the other two features, they include third-party agents, like Adobe Express, for helping with specific tasks. The other offers a connection to Salesforce channels. This gives your team access to "CRM (Customer Relationship Management) data from Salesforce records" so you can better assist clients.