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Claude in Slack is available now to teams with paid Slack plans.
Claude can also now reference users' past Slack conversations.
AI agents are increasingly accessible in work platforms.
In its latest effort to weave its proprietary AI technology into people's daily routines, Anthropic announced Wednesday that Claude can now be accessed directly through Slack.
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The integration is intended to essentially make Claude an AI collaborator within Slack, capable of handling simple and routine tasks like drafting messages and breaking down the key points from a shared document.
Slack users can now start a private conversation with Claude, or add it to a group thread, simply by tagging @Claude, or by clicking a devoted icon at the top-right corner of their screen. Integrating Claude with Slack gives the chatbot permission to access threads in a user's workspace channels, as well as their direct messages and shared files -- but only those that they have direct access to.
Claude in Slack is available now through the Slack Marketplace, which is accessible to teams subscribed to paid Slack plans.
New Slack connector
Claude can also now be integrated with Slack directly through a connector in its chat interface, via the settings menu (two horizontal lines with overlaying circles), which enables it to access users' past Slack messages to contextualize its responses to queries.
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A user might prompt Claude at the beginning of the workweek, for example, to search through their recent Slack messages to figure out which tasks they should prioritize and draft emails to colleagues to schedule any necessary meetings.
The Slack connector is available to Claude Team and Enterprise customers. Account admins must first enable the connector before teams can access it through the chatbot's settings tab.
Agents in the workplace
The fusion between Claude and Slack is part of a more general trend throughout the tech industry to equip businesses with AI agents that are widely marketed as virtual assistants specializing in mundane but time-consuming tasks.
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"Every company is on its way to becoming an agentic enterprise, where AI agents work hand-in-hand with humans. Partnering with Anthropic to integrate Claude into Slack and Slack context into Claude accelerates that journey -- bringing best-in-class AI directly into the flow of work," Rob Seaman, Chief Product Officer at Slack, said in a statement.
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Slack jumped aboard the AI-powered productivity bandwagon with the July launch of a suite of new features, including real-time translation, for its Pro, Enterprise+, and Business+ plans.
More accessible AI tools
AI developers have been using popular third-party apps as entry points to get their AI tools into the hands of as many users as possible. While some people are devoted enough to Claude to go through the trouble of downloading the app or bookmarking it on their laptop, it takes less effort to tag it in a Slack message, opening the door to more widespread use.
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Anthropic also recently integrated Claude with a host of other popular apps like Stripe, Canva, and Asana through a "directory" of third-party connectors.
In a similar move, AI startup Perplexity launched an Email Assistant tool last month that can connect directly to Gmail or Microsoft to handle tasks like summarizing lengthy email threads.