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At Dreamforce 2024, Slack unveiled a series of innovations designed to empower organizations in the Agentic Era, where humans and digital agents work side by side. These groundbreaking updates transform Slack from a collaboration tool to a fully integrated work operating system that blends AI and automation to help organizations work smarter, faster, and more productively.
As Slack transforms into the primary interface for Salesforce, it becomes more than just a messaging tool – it's now the dynamic front end where your daily AI interactions, workflows, and CRM data converge. With Agentforce and third-party AI integrations, you can manage sales pipelines, customer service cases, and marketing campaigns, all through natural language commands. This evolution turns Slack into the central hub for engaging with AI-driven insights, automating tasks, and accessing real-time data, redefining how teams collaborate and work smarter across the entire Salesforce ecosystem.
Our team at Bryd was on the ground at Dreamforce 2024, experiencing firsthand the exciting innovations announced by Slack and Salesforce. Laurence Fitch, co-founder of Bryd, shared his enthusiasm about the new era of AI-driven work management:
"Being at Dreamforce, it's clear that Slack is redefining the way we interact with Salesforce data and AI, making it the ultimate front door to the Salesforce ecosystem. We’re thrilled about the seamless integration of Agentforce and third-party AI agents, which elevates Slack into a true work operating system. At Bryd, we're excited to be at the forefront as the world's leading Slack-first Salesforce partner, helping businesses harness this new wave of productivity and collaboration. These releases reaffirm our mission to empower teams to work smarter, faster, and more efficiently than ever before."
1. Agentforce: A New Era of Conversational Agents
The introduction of Agentforce is one of the most exciting announcements from Dreamforce 2024. Agentforce enables teams to interact with digital agents within Slack’s familiar interface. These agents can process tasks, retrieve critical data from Salesforce, and provide actionable insights—all through natural language commands.
Imagine simply asking Slack to update a client’s CRM record or generate an action plan, and within seconds, the task is completed. Agents like Agentforce Sales Coach can even autonomously facilitate training sessions, offering personalized feedback to sales teams, helping improve performance in real time.
Third-party agents are also becoming a core part of the Slack ecosystem, allowing organizations to integrate with tools like Adobe Express and Writer, with more on the horizon like Anthropic’s Claude. These agents help teams streamline various tasks, from generating content to analyzing data, while all interactions remain centralized within Slack’s interface.
2. Slack AI: Boosting Productivity with Powerful Automation
Slack AI continues to play a crucial role in transforming the workplace. By summarizing over 600 million messages and saving more than 1.1 million hours of work, Slack AI has proven to be a key productivity driver. This year, Slack introduced several enhancements, including AI-powered huddle notes. During Slack huddles, users can now generate summaries of key takeaways, action items, and transcripts directly into Slack Canvas, ensuring no details are missed.
The Workflow Builder has also been expanded, allowing users to create workflows by simply typing conversational prompts. Teams can automate routine tasks like setting reminders or following up on project milestones without needing to write code. Slack AI then processes these prompts into functional workflows, freeing up time for more complex, strategic work.
Additionally, Slack AI’s search function has been upgraded to offer more comprehensive results, pulling answers not just from conversations but also from documents, files, and transcripts shared within Slack. This enhanced AI-driven search capability helps users retrieve key information more efficiently.
Salesforce announced that it would offer free premium instructor-led AI certifications and courses through 2025 via Trailhead, aimed at increasing AI knowledge and education
3. Salesforce Channels: Integrating Customer Data into Slack
One of the most transformative updates is the introduction of Salesforce channels. These channels integrate CRM data from Salesforce directly into Slack’s workspace, allowing teams to manage customer data and collaborate on sales and service records in real time. Whether it’s tracking opportunities or managing support cases, teams no longer have to toggle between platforms.
By combining conversations and CRM records in a unified space, Salesforce channels help cross-functional teams—from sales to finance—work together more effectively. Slack also includes AI summaries for these channels, so teams can quickly review key insights from ongoing discussions without manually searching through long threads.
This feature is a game changer for both large enterprises and small businesses. Salesforce Starter Suite will soon enable small businesses to leverage these integrations, bringing them powerful CRM capabilities right within their Slack work OS.
4. Templates: Fast-Track Project Success
To ensure businesses can scale operations efficiently, Slack is introducing Slack templates—pre-configured solutions designed for specific use cases, such as project management or customer service. Each template comes with fully set-up channels, canvases, workflows, and lists tailored to the organization’s needs.
These templates make it simple for any team to get started without needing to spend time creating custom structures. For instance, teams rolling out a new marketing campaign or managing help desk requests can start with a framework that includes everything they need—from a project overview to status updates. With these templates, Slack helps organizations standardize best practices across the company, ensuring consistency in workflows.
Why These Innovations Matter for You
With these announcements, Slack has cemented its role as a comprehensive digital HQ designed for the future of work. By integrating digital agents, AI, and CRM data into everyday operations, Slack is helping teams work smarter, faster, and with more focus. These tools will be particularly useful for businesses seeking to drive collaboration across teams, automate repetitive tasks, and streamline decision-making with AI-generated insights.
As Denise Dresser, CEO of Slack, pointed out, “We’ve moved beyond collaboration; every day, millions of teams are leveraging purpose-built AI, with customer data, automation and now agents seamlessly integrated into the flow of work.”
We were fortunate to catch up with Denise Dresser (CEO) and Parker Harris (CTO) at Dreamforce 2024 and were genuinely inspired by the impact they're driving as they embed Slack more deeply into Salesforce. Their vision for leading the charge on AI Agents is transforming how businesses interact with CRM data and collaborate in real-time. It's exciting to see their dedication to making Slack not just a communication tool, but the central operating system for work, where AI-driven insights and automation are seamlessly integrated into everyday workflows. Their leadership is undoubtedly paving the way for the future of work, and we're eager to help our clients leverage these game-changing innovations.
How Can These Updates Help Your Business?
At Bryd, we’re always looking for ways to boost productivity and streamline our workflows. Slack’s new agent-powered features are tailored to help businesses do exactly that, whether by automating routine tasks, offering smarter ways to manage projects, or integrating customer data directly into the platform. These tools are particularly useful for organizations aiming to increase productivity without increasing effort.
Engage with Us: What Are You Excited About?
What Slack innovation are you most looking forward to implementing? Share your thoughts with us, and let’s explore how we can leverage these features to elevate your team’s performance. Don’t forget to follow Bryd for the latest updates on workplace technology and collaboration!
