After every Dreamforce, and after we’ve all had a chance to catch up on sleep, we like to reflect on what made this one the best Dreamforce ever. For Slack, in our fourth year as a Salesforce company, it truly felt like we were embraced by the community as the operating system for work, ready to empower people with new AI agents.
What’s new in Slack?
Slack’s mission has always been to simplify work by bringing your people, data, and apps together in one place. With new AI agents and automation tools, Slack is a true work OS built to help you get the most out of your systems and get work done.
Here’s a closer look at the new features announced:
- Agentforce integration: Agentforce is a whole new way to work with the trusted data managed by Salesforce. Agents in Slack allow anyone to work more deeply with their CRM, assisting with everything from sales coaching to resolving support cases, powered by your data. You can even get started building your own Slack app with agent support today.
- Third-party AI agents and assistants: We’re opening up Slack’s work OS to even more possibilities with third-party AI integrations. Available through the Slack Marketplace, these AI-powered applications include Adobe Express, Cohere, Writer, and more coming soon. Each agent can help you generate content, conduct market research, or retrieve and summarize documents — all within Slack.
- Enhanced Workflow Builder: Workflow Builder, our no-code automation tool, now supports conversational prompts. You can set up workflows simply by typing a command like, “Set up a reminder to ask my team for updates every Monday at 9 a.m.” Slack will then create a draft workflow that you can refine before publishing.
- Improved Slack AI search: Find richer and more relevant answers in Slack with our improved AI search capabilities. Search can now pull information from messages, documents, and other files, making it easier to get answers from across your workspace.
Bringing Salesforce data to Slack
Slack and Salesforce are a perfect pair for driving productivity. The new Salesforce channels feature brings CRM data from Salesforce records – such as opportunities, cases, and custom objects – into dedicated Slack channels. This means that teams like sales, support, and operations can work directly with customer data in Slack without switching between applications.
With Salesforce channels, every discussion and decision is tied to a record, enabling teams to make faster, data-informed decisions. For example, an account team can use these channels to strategize on how to navigate complex issues and manage approvals with partners from legal and finance. Soon, these channels will also be available within the Salesforce UI, so you can collaborate with your team wherever you work.
Putting these features to work
During a roundtable discussion at Dreamforce, customers shared how they’re already using these new capabilities to streamline their workflows and enhance automation. Here are some use cases to inspire you to start automating today:
- Sales teams: With Agentforce Sales Coach, sales teams can conduct autonomous role plays within the context of a deal. The agent provides personalized feedback, helping sellers refine their skills and increase win rates. Teams can then use Slack lists to track their progress and set action items for continuous improvement.
- Support teams: Customer support agents are resolving cases faster by leveraging Salesforce channels to access customer information and team discussions in one place. With AI-generated summaries and action plans, agents can stay focused on problem-solving rather than searching for information, resulting in quicker response times and higher customer satisfaction.
These innovations are just the beginning. By bringing AI and automation into Slack, teams are empowered to work more efficiently and focus on high-value activities that drive business outcomes.
Connecting with community
One of the highlights of Dreamforce was getting to connect in-person with the Slack Community! We had more than half of all our Slack Community Leaders in attendance, which is the biggest gathering of Slack Community Leaders in Salesforce event history. Not only did the community get some shiny new gear to highlight their role as leaders, but they also got to connect with our Slack executive leadership team to talk about what matters to them, what they love (and not) about the Slack platform, and learn about how our leadership team is shaping the vision for Slack’s growth. It was amazing to see the Slack Community be so energetic in real life and get some of the shine it so deserves from the Salesforce ecosystem.
Get started with building Slack apps
Are you excited about these new possibilities and want to build on the Slack platform? Getting started is easier than ever. Visit the new slack.dev for resources, documentation, and tutorials to begin creating apps that leverage Slack’s APIs, AI capabilities, and integration points with Salesforce.
Ready to take it to the next level? Grab a free Slack developer sandbox by joining the developer program and start testing all the capabilities with the new Salesforce channels and Agentforce, Slack apps, and AI agents to build automated workflows that bridge the gap between customer data and team collaboration all from your work OS.
We’d love for you to join our Slack Community, where you can connect with other Slack developers to learn and grow your skills both virtually and at in-person community events.
Slack, your work OS
As we look toward the future, one thing is clear: AI and automation are redefining the workplace. The new features announced at Dreamforce 2024 demonstrate how Slack and Salesforce are committed to helping organizations work smarter, not harder.
If you want to watch the Slack keynote, you can do so on Salesforce+. Join us on LinkedIn, and let us know how you plan on using all these capabilities to transform the way you work.
