AI is now part of every paid Slack subscription, and the platform continues building out its agentic OS with new features including enterprise search connectors, writing assistance, and contextual definitions embedded in the app. The Enterprise+ plan, which scales AI company-wide, now includes AI for drafting documents and answering questions using information stored in Slack chats and connected apps. Business+ is adding recaps, translations, workflow generation and AI-powered search, while the entry-level Pro tier offers AI summarization for conversations in channels, threads and huddles, making it easier to stay current on communications.

Set to roll out over the next few months, the new features also include “AI-powered writing assistance embedded directly into Slack’s Canvas,” the collaborative team workspace, reports VentureBeat. From any Slack conversation, the Canvas assistant will summarize key points, offer contextual information, extract action items, execute drafts, rewrites and more.

VentureBeat suggests the improvements are an attempt to “turn the messaging platform into a central hub for enterprise productivity, marking owner Salesforce’s direct challenge to Microsoft’s workplace AI dominance.” In January, Agentforce in Slack became generally available, allowing Salesforce customers with a paid Slack plan to deploy customizable AI agents for automating workflows.

VentureBeat says enterprise collaboration is a $45 billion business “where Microsoft’s Teams platform and its Copilot AI assistant have gained significant traction against Slack since Salesforce’s $27.7 billion acquisition of the messaging service in 2021.” Google is also striving to become a player with its Duet AI for Google Workspace.

ZDNet points out that enterprise search lets employees retrieve information “by posing questions in natural language, similar to querying an AI chatbot that searches the web.”

It searches across relevant corporate information including “conversations, files (even PDFs and images), and data from connected applications like Google Drive, Microsoft Teams, Confluence Cloud, and more,” according to a Slack blog post.

“Soon, Slack’s AI will even be able to create user profiles, offering insights into team members’ roles and recent contributions — especially useful in large organizations,” writes Fast Company, reminding readers that the name stands for “searchable log of all conversation and knowledge.”

Slack’s AI expansion comes a month after making headlines by changing its API terms of service to block third-party LLMs from exporting its data.

In May, the communications platform faced pushback from customers after revealing it drew on user data for machine learning, per SecurityWeek. Slack countered those models were trained for basic platform functions, not for Slack AI, assuring in its blog post that AI in Slack meets “the highest standards for data security, privacy, and compliance.”