Salesforce has rolled out some new AI features for its business-focused Slack chat app designed to take over mundane chores like transcription. A key new feature is Slack AI huddle notes to "capture key takeaways and action items so users can focus on the work at hand," the company wrote. This looks like a more powerful version of a previous Slack AI feature that recaps channel highlights and generates summaries for threads in a single click. When invited to a huddle, Slack AI creates a transcript based on real-time audio and messages shared in the thread. It can also organize notes with citations, action items and files shared into a canvas.

Hackers have developed a'difficult to trace' new method to exploit AI tools inside workplace messaging app Slack -- tricking its chatbot into sending malware. The popular collaboration platform has gained prominence for facilitating quick communications between coworkers, with some linking it to a new age of'micro-cheating' and office affairs. The cybersecurity team within Slack's research program said Tuesday that they had patched the issue on the same day outside experts first reported the flaw to them. But the vulnerability, which lets hackers disguise malicious code inside uploaded documents and Google Drive files, highlights the growing risks posed by'artificial intelligence' that lacks the'street smarts' to deal with unscrupulous user requests. While the independent security researcher who first discovered the new flaw praised Slack for its diligent response, they went public with news of the AI's vulnerability'so that users could turn off the necessary settings to decrease their exposure.'

Slack will soon begin rolling out what it calls "Slack AI" to its customers, featuring smart search, channel recaps, and summaries -- and a number of caveats, too. Slack has been trying to integrate AI into its conversational interface for about a year now, and some of this sounds pretty familiar. Slack was talking about a "Slack GPT" app last spring, with the eventual rollout of a sales-based AI, Einstein GPT, to leverage parent Salesforce's CRM technology. That's part of the message that Slack is reiterating today. Some of what Slack is talking about makes sense.

After introducing the generative AI capabilities it was developing for Slack at World Tour NYC earlier this year, Salesforce has revealed as part of its Dreamforce announcements that it's now gearing up to pilot the new features this winter. Slack AI, as the capabilities are collectively called, is built natively into the platform to make it easy to access. One of its abilities is to instantly generate channel highlights that can immediately tell users the most important part of conversations, which they can then use for reports or to simply read what they might have missed. Slack AI can also generate summaries for threads in just one click for people who just want to get the gist of specific conversations and not the channel a whole. As shown in the image above, AI-generated summaries don't just come with highlights, but also lists of what next steps users can take based on concerns, comments and suggestions posted by people in the conversation.