Guide to AI features in Slack
Slack offers built-in generative AI tools backed by your conversation data to help any team work more productively. Our native AI features are intuitive, secure, and tailored to your organization.
Feature availability by plan
| Feature | Pro | Business+ | Enterprise+ |
| Conversation summaries | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Huddle notes | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Search | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Recaps | ✓ | ✓ | |
| File summaries | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Translations | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Workflow automation | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Message explanations | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Enterprise search | ✓ |
Note: If you're on the legacy version of Business+ or the Enterprise Grid plan without the Slack AI add-on, you'll only have access to the Pro features listed above. For more details, visit Updates to feature availability and pricing for Slack plans.
Summarize conversations
Get up to speed more quickly in any channel, direct message (DM), or thread. Whether you’re joining a new channel, returning from time off, or catching up on a fast-moving discussion, AI can summarize conversations in seconds.
Summarize a channel or DM
You can summarize just your unread messages, the last seven days, or a custom date range (desktop only).
Desktop
Mobile
- Open the channel or DM you'd like to summarize.
- Click Summarize in the top right.
- Choose an option to generate your summary, which will appear when it's ready.
- If you'd like, click the More details icon to view the summary's sources.
- Open the channel or DM you'd like to summarize.
- Tap Summarize in the top right.
- Choose an option to generate your summary. When it's ready, you’ll see a badge on the Summarize icon. Tap it to view your summary.
Summarize a thread
Desktop
Mobile
- Open the thread you'd like to summarize.
- Click Summarize in the top right. Your summary will appear when it's ready.
- If you'd like, click the More details icon to view the summary's sources.
- Open the thread you'd like to summarize.
- Tap Summarize in the top right.
- When your summary is ready, you’ll see a badge on the Summarize icon. Tap it to view your summary.
Note: Summaries can take longer to generate for larger time frames or message histories. We’ll notify you when your summary is ready, so feel free to take a break or move on to other work in the meantime.
Tip: On mobile, pinch a channel or thread in the Catch Up view to generate a summary.
Search for answers
Ask a question in your own words and get a concise answer based on relevant knowledge already in Slack. Try asking questions that start with “how” or “what,” or use keywords like a project name to get started.
Desktop
Mobile
- Click the search bar at the top of Slack.
- Type your question and press Enter.
- AI answers will appear at the top of your search results. Answers include citations that refer to the source messages or files that informed them. Hover over a citation to preview the source, or click on it to view the message or file.
- Tap the search bar at the top of Slack.
- Type your question and tap Search or the magnifying glass icon on your device's keyboard
- AI answers will appear at the top of your search results. Answers include citations that refer to the source messages or files that informed them, and you can tap a citation to view the sources.
Tip: If you're on the Enterprise+ plan, an Org Owner or Admin can enable enterprise search to include content and information from other sources (like Google Drive, GitHub, and more) in search results.
Recap what you missed
Get caught up after some time away from Slack with a customized summary of your unread channels. With recaps, you can get automated daily summaries for channels that you’re interested in keeping tabs on, but don’t want to interrupt you throughout your workday.
- When you set up your recap for the first time, Slack will recommend a few channels that you visit often, but don’t tend to participate in, that you might want to include in your recap.
- Once you review which channels to include and turn recaps on, you can mute those channels to keep your sidebar tidy, or unmute the conversations you'd like to continue keeping a closer eye on.
- You’ll get a new recap every morning with what you missed from the previous day. If you’re away for a longer period of time, your recap will cover however many days you were gone.
Read your recap
Desktop
Mobile
- Click Recap in the sidebar.
- Review your recap. Click More details to review a recap’s sources, or click the three dots icon next to any channel to remove it from future recaps.
- From the Home tab, tap Recap.
- Review your recap. Tap a message to view more details, including the recap's sources. To remove a channel from future recaps, tap the arrow icon next to the channel name and select Remove from Recap.
Manage your recap
You can add or remove conversations in your recap anytime, and decide which channels should be muted.
- From your desktop, click Recap in the sidebar.
- Click Manage Recap in the top right.
- To add conversations to your recap, search for and select the channel you’d like to add.
- To remove conversations, uncheck the boxes next to the channels you no longer want to include.
- Mute or unmute channels by clicking the toggle.
- Click Save.
Summarize files
When you share certain text-based files (.pdf, .docx, .pptx, and .xlsx) in channels or DMs, Slack will automatically summarize the file.
- Summaries are only available for files that are accessible to everyone and will appear below a file with a Summarize icon.
- File summaries are provided in the same language as the file, regardless of your language preferences.
- To view a more detailed summary, hover over a file and click View summary.
Manage your file summaries
You can decide whether to display file summaries. If you turn file summaries off, they won’t be generated for any files you add to Slack, and you won’t see summaries for others’ files.
- From your desktop, click your profile picture in the sidebar.
- Click Preferences.
- Select AI.
- Below File summaries, choose whether you’d like to summarize files you upload and display summaries for files that other people upload.
Translate messages
Use AI to translate messages in Slack written in another language. First, set your translation language, and then select a message to translate.
Set your translation language
- From your desktop, click your profile picture in the sidebar.
- Click Preferences.
- Select Language & region.
- Below Translation language, choose the default language you’d like to translate messages to.
Translate a message
Once you’ve set a translation language, you can translate messages in Slack. Translations are only visible to you, so other people will always see the original message.
Desktop
Mobile
- In any conversation, hover over a message.
- Click the three dots icon in the top-right corner of the message, then select Translate message.
- Click See original below the translated message to view it in the original language.
- In any conversation, long press a message.
- Tap Translate Message.
- Tap See original below the translated message to view it in the original language.
Explain messages
If you come across a message that contains lots of acronyms or covers a complex topic, ask AI to explain it. Explanations break messages down to help you understand their meaning and context, and are not visible to anyone else.
- From your desktop, open any conversation.
- Hover over a message and select Explain message.
- Your explanation will open to the right of the message. Click Sources to view any messages and files referenced in the answer, or click Share to forward your explanation to others.
Tip: You can also get explanations for images (up to 1 MB in size) and files.