Tag: microsoft

Big Tech Pivots to AI Infrastructure, Commercial Deployment and Drug Discovery

admin — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 19:33:34 +0000

Big Tech companies moved this week to solidify their control over the artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem, launching initiatives that range from massive data-center expansions to specialized tools for retail and drug discovery.

Meta’s Gigawatt-Scale AI Infrastructure Push

Meta is doubling down on the AI arms race with a sweeping initiative dubbed Meta Compute, designed to centralize and supercharge its data center and AI infrastructure build-out. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta Compute will build tens of gigawatts of computing capacity this decade, with visions to scale to hundreds of gigawatts over time—energy levels comparable to those of small countries.

The effort places leadership for global data-center design, supply chain partnerships and strategic capacity planning under a unified organization co-led by Santosh Janardhan and Daniel Gross, with guidance from newly appointed president Dina Powell McCormick, as reported by PYMNTS.

Meta’s push comes as the company seeks to catch up with AI heavyweights like Google, Microsoft and OpenAI. Last year’s Llama 4 model received a lukewarm market response, and Meta is now betting that owning larger swaths of compute, paired with reliable energy procurement, will yield strategic advantage.

Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience

Google Cloud introduced a new suite of AI tools under the banner of Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience (CX) to unify shopping and customer support on a single intelligent platform. Designed for retailers and service businesses, Gemini Enterprise for CX leverages the latest Gemini models to create agentic AI solutions, agents that can reason, execute complex tasks and drive customer conversions.

The offering includes prebuilt and configurable agents that businesses can deploy within days to handle tasks such as product discovery, personalized recommendations and autonomous post-purchase support. These agents operate across interfaces from chat assistants to voice and can pull in contextual information to deliver cohesive responses. A new Customer Experience Agent Studio helps enterprises build, test and scale these agents, while insight tools analyze customer interactions for trends and performance optimization.

Gemini Enterprise for CX also embraces open standards like the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), aimed at enabling seamless interoperability between AI agents and existing retail systems.

Amazon Expands Alexa+ With Browser-Based AI Access

Amazon is advancing its generative-AI assistant strategy with the introduction of Alexa.com, a browser-based interface for its Alexa+ assistant. Previously limited to Echo smart speakers and the Alexa mobile app, Alexa+ now runs in desktop browsers, allowing users anywhere to interact with the assistant.

Alexa+ marks Amazon’s broader transition from voice-only commands to agent-style capabilities that provide assistance and continuity across devices. Unlike traditional voice interactions, the web version retains conversational context and history, enabling a seamless experience when users move between devices. The rollout targets early-access users and reflects Amazon’s intent to compete more directly with chatbot-style AI offerings from Google Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Nvidia, Eli Lilly Launch AI Lab Focused on Drug Discovery

Nvidia and Eli Lilly on Monday (Jan. 12) announced a co-innovation lab to accelerate drug discovery using AI. This collaboration aims to apply Nvidia’s AI computing platforms and Lilly’s pharmeceutical expertise to reimagine how novel drug candidates are identified and optimized. The lab will explore techniques such as generative modeling, simulation-based design and predictive biology to reduce the time and cost associated with bringing new medicines to market.

By integrating deep learning with biomedical research workflows, the partnership seeks to overcome traditional bottlenecks in target validation, molecular design and preclinical testing.

Nvidia’s GPUs and AI frameworks can enable researchers to model complex biological systems at scale, while Lilly contributes domain knowledge and experimental capability.

Early efforts will likely focus on areas where AI can deliver clear predictive power, such as protein folding, molecular interaction prediction and virtual screening of compound libraries. If successful, these tools could dramatically shorten drug discovery cycles and unlock treatments for diseases that have long defied conventional approaches.

The post Big Tech Pivots to AI Infrastructure, Commercial Deployment and Drug Discovery appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Microsoft Spending on Anthropic Approaches $500 Million a Year

admin — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 18:27:35 +0000

Microsoft is reportedly upping its spending on Anthropic, chief rival to partner OpenAI.

According to a report Wednesday (Jan. 14) by The Information, Microsoft has become one of Anthropic’s top customers.

The tech giant is now on track to spend around $500 million per year to use Anthropic’s artificial intelligence (AI) in Microsoft products, the report said, citing a source with direct knowledge of the matter.

In addition, Microsoft has increased its focus on selling its cloud customers Anthropic AI models, which could drive more revenue for both firms.

The company recently informed salespeople in its Azure cloud business that selling Anthropic AI models to Microsoft cloud customers will count toward their sales goals just like Microsoft-made software, two Microsoft employees told The Information.

Because Microsoft has offered the same incentive for sales staff for selling OpenAI products, the new quota system means sales people have as much incentive to sell Anthropic models as ones from its main competitor, the sources said.

As the report noted, Microsoft’s increasing ties to Anthropic follow its decision in September to make an up-to-$5 billion investment in the company. Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI, giving it a 27% stake in the startup.

But while Microsoft keeps 80% of sales of OpenAI models to Azure customers, it retains a smaller percentage of its sales of Anthropic’s AI models, a source briefed on the situation told The Information.

OpenAI announced in October that it had transformed its for-profit arm into a public benefit corporation, an arrangement that provides Microsoft with a 27% stake — worth roughly $135 billion — in that unit.

“What began as an investment in a research organization has grown into one of the most successful partnerships in our industry,” the ChatGPT maker wrote on its blog at the time.

In other Microsoft news, PYMNTS wrote this week about the company’s new agentic AI capabilities, which it says are designed to help retailers move faster, operate with greater efficiency and engage shoppers with more relevance by enhancing human decision-making.

“The approach focuses on connecting traditionally fragmented functions — merchandising, marketing, store operations and fulfillment — into coordinated workflows that can anticipate needs and act in real time,” the report added.

Microsoft said this shift reflects a wider move within the industry toward intelligence-driven retail operating models created for speed, resilience and scale.

As PYMNTS wrote, it shows how the company is pushing AI “deeper into retail operations, positioning intelligent automation as a unifying layer across the entire retail value chain.”

The post Microsoft Spending on Anthropic Approaches $500 Million a Year appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Microsoft's first Patch Tuesday of 2026 fixes over 100 bugs and one active zero-day flaw — don't wait to update your PC

admin — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 17:19:39 +0000

Microsoft if back with its first round of Patch Tuesday updates for the new year which fix 114 security flaws in total.

Microsoft’s Spending on Anthropic AI Is on Pace to Hit $500 Million

admin — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 14:00:15 +0000

OpenAI is Microsoft’s most important AI provider and its biggest cloud server customer.

But as OpenAI does more business with Microsoft’s cloud rivals, Microsoft is doing more business with Anthropic, OpenAI’s archrival.

Microsoft has quietly become one of Anthropic’s top customers and was recently on pace to spend nearly $500 million a year for Anthropic AI to power Microsoft products, according to a person with direct knowledge. At the same time, Microsoft is putting more emphasis on selling Anthropic AI models to its cloud customers, which could generate more revenue for both companies.

UK police blame Microsoft Copilot for intelligence mistake

admin — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 13:00:50 +0000

The chief constable of one of Britain's largest police forces has admitted that Microsoft's Copilot AI assistant made a mistake in a football (soccer) intelligence report. The report, which led to Israeli football fans being banned from a match last year, included a nonexistent match between West Ham and Maccabi Tel Aviv.

Copilot hallucinated the game and West Midlands Police included the error in its intelligence report without fact checking it. "On Friday afternoon I became aware that the erroneous result concerning the West Ham v Maccabi Tel Aviv match arose as result of a use of Microsoft Co Pilot [sic]," says Craig Guildford, chief con …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Microsoft responds to backlash with new data center promises

admin — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 11:44:57 +0000

Microsoft pledged Tuesday to implement a “community-first” approach for its AI infrastructure buildouts, including measures to prevent increased electricity costs for residential customers.

The company said it will collaborate with utility companies and state commissions to ensure data center electricity costs are not passed to residential customers. This move follows Microsoft’s commitment to invest billions in expanding its AI capacity, announced last year. Microsoft stated it would “pay its own way” to cover its electrical grid burden.

“Our goal is straightforward: to ensure that the electricity cost of serving our data centers is not passed on to residential customers,” Microsoft said.

Microsoft also committed to creating jobs in communities hosting its data centers and minimizing water usage, addressing contentious environmental concerns and questions regarding job creation. Public backlash against data center development has intensified, with 142 activist groups in 24 states currently opposing such projects. Data Center Watch tracks this activism.

This public opposition has directly affected Microsoft. In October, the company canceled plans for a data center in Caledonia, Wisconsin, due to community feedback. In Michigan, plans for a project in a central township generated local protests. On Monday, former President Trump posted on social media that Microsoft would make changes to ensure Americans’ electricity bills would not rise, stating the changes would “ensure that Americans don’t ‘pick up the tab’ for their power consumption.”

Featured image credit

Slackbot now has agentic capabilities thanks to Anthropic

admin — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 11:41:11 +0000

Salesforce has released an updated Slackbot, powered by Anthropic’s Claude model, for Business+ and Enterprise+ Slack subscribers to organize communications and locate information within Slack and other services. The company expects the new functionality to reduce reliance on external AI tools and to drive user migration from competing platforms such as Microsoft Teams.

The updated Slackbot became available Tuesday, following an October announcement of plans to integrate generative AI into the virtual assistant. This AI-powered Slackbot uses Anthropic’s Claude model, though Salesforce is exploring alternative models. Salesforce acquired Slack in 2021 for $27.1 billion, marking its largest purchase on record.

Salesforce co-founder and technology chief Parker Harris stated that the new Slackbot helps with meeting preparation and topic research, reducing the need for traditional search functions. He reported that the integrated AI respects user permissions and access controls, only accessing data visible to the user within conversations, files, channels, and contacts. The system can connect with data in Slack, Salesforce, Google Drive, Box, and Atlassian’s Confluence.

Despite the broader AI sector’s growth, Salesforce’s stock price has declined 18% in the past year, in contrast to the Nasdaq’s 24% gain over the same period. Harris dismissed concerns that large language models and coding agents are disrupting cloud software or that services like OpenAI’s ChatGPT would integrate directly into corporate systems. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff commented that agent-based systems are replacing older client service software.

https://slackhq.com/dotcom/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2026/01/video-slackbot-reintroduction_2X.mp4

Video: Slack

Salesforce has also been selling Agentforce services to automate customer service functions. Meanwhile, other technology companies, including Google and Microsoft, have integrated AI add-ons into their work productivity suites. Since its launch in 2014, Slackbot has provided automated messages and third-party updates, but Slack has been a relative laggard in AI integration since the introduction of chatbots following ChatGPT’s release in late 2022.

A Salesforce spokesperson reported that millions of individuals across thousands of organizations use Slack, which is one of the company’s fastest-growing cloud offerings. Harris stated that the new Slackbot is the most quickly adopted feature in Salesforce’s 27-year history.

Demetri Salvaggio, vice president of customer experience and operations at Engine, a business travel software company, reported that using the new Slackbot saves him 45 minutes to an hour weekly. Engine holds licenses for Google’s Gemini assistant and Anthropic’s Claude, but these are not embedded within the company’s Slack environment.

In leadership changes, OpenAI hired former Slack CEO Denise Dresser as its chief revenue officer in December. Rob Seaman, Slack’s former product chief, became the unit’s interim CEO.

Featured image credit

Microsoft’s Proactive Data Center Promises

admin — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 01:00:23 +0000

Maybe Brad Smith should run for office. The Microsoft vice chair and president put his name to a lengthy, detailed document released on Tuesday that demonstrates the tech giant is trying to get ahead of growing grass-roots complaints about the impact of data centers on local communities. Among other things, Microsoft promised to pay enough for electricity it uses in its data centers—including the cost of adding new infrastructure—so that its energy consumption doesn’t cause higher rates for consumers. That’s quite a promise to make.

It’s little wonder President Donald Trump, who faces growing skepticism among voters about his closeness to big tech on AI issues, scooped Microsoft on its announcement in a Truth Social post on Monday evening. “I never want Americans to pay higher electricity bills because of data centers,” Trump said, obviously aware that the rising cost of power is sure to be a potent issue in the midterms. (This story in today’s Wall Street Journal spotlights it.) It’s smart of Microsoft to be proactive. After all, if it doesn’t take action to tamp down complaints, energy regulators and local politicians are likely to take action of their own. Tech companies might find it’s harder to build in particular areas. Microsoft is also surely winning brownie points with Trump, which won’t hurt.

Sleuth uncovers Office 97 Easter egg hidden for 30 years: 'the comments Clippy provides are a cherry on top'

admin — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 18:53:52 +0000

Microsoft Office 97 came out in the fall of 1996, and nearly thirty years later one software enthusiast with an eye for Easter eggs has discovered a fun little secret unlocked by an arcane series of commands. Clippy's there, too!

PayPal Teams With Deutsche Bank to Scale Payment Solutions

admin — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 17:48:11 +0000

PayPal says it is expanding its years-long partnership with Deutsche Bank.

This effort is designed to provide “enhanced payment solutions” throughout the U.S., Europe and the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, PayPal said in a Tuesday (Jan. 13) news release.

Under this agreement, Deutsche Bank will scale up the merchant settlement, payouts and begin withdrawals and collection solutions for PayPal in the U.S., while offering additional sport in Europe and APAC.

“This partnership reflects our shared commitment to innovation, as well as the deepening of a strong relationship that we have nurtured for more than a decade with PayPal,” said Ole Matthiessen, global co-head of corporate bank at Deutsche Bank.

“By combining PayPal’s global reach with Deutsche Bank’s expertise in Cash Management and Merchant Solutions, we are adding more resiliency and diversification to our platform,” added Kausik Rajgopal, executive vice president for strategy, partnerships and corporate development at PayPal. “With this expansion we will be able to grow the commerce solutions we deliver to our customers worldwide.”

PayPal also recently teamed with Microsoft to support the launch of the tech giant’s Copilot Checkout. As covered here last week, this service lets shoppers browse and pay without needing to leave Copilot.

For its part, PayPal will power “surfacing merchant inventory, branded checkout, guest checkout and credit card payments, starting with Copilot.com,” the companies said in a news release.

“Collaborating with Microsoft marks another step forward in our strategy to support merchants and consumers in AI-powered shopping experiences,” said Michelle Gill, general manager of small business and financial services for PayPal. “By integrating PayPal’s agentic commerce services with Copilot’s intelligent shopping platform, we are enabling seamless, reliable transactions for both merchants and consumers.”

Meanwhile, PYMNTS spoke recently with Dave Szuchman, head of global financial crime at PayPal, for a panel discussion on the evolution of fraud.

As that report noted, the “scam attack surface” has evolved from email inboxes to social feeds, direct messages and online marketplaces, all environments where trust is built socially, rather than institutionally.

Younger, digitally native users are increasingly the target of scams because they are comfortable moving money quickly, dealing with multiple apps and responding in real time.

“Social media has been a great equalizer in scams,” Szuchman said. “That’s where the grooming activities are occurring … and then our platforms are being utilized as part of that ecosystem. This is an ecosystem problem.”

The post PayPal Teams With Deutsche Bank to Scale Payment Solutions appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Microsoft Pledges to Pay More for Electricity, Drawing Praise From Trump

admin — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 16:21:57 +0000

The tech giant is responding to concerns that data centers are driving up electricity costs in some communities.

Microsoft scrambles to quell fury around its new AI data centers

admin — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 15:33:41 +0000

It looks like the wave of campaigns against data centers are getting under big tech companies' skin - and Microsoft is the latest giant to promise to address frustrations on the ground in communities around their data centers.

The company announced a five-point plan today that it calls "Community-First AI Infrastructure." That includes paying more to try to prevent data center energy demands from raising other customers' electricity bills, minimizing the company's water use, training workers and creating jobs, and contributing to the local tax base in locations it operates.

The issue has influenced local elections, with some communities …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Microsoft Pledges to Pay Higher Electricity Rates for Data Centers, Curb Costs for Households

admin — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 14:26:03 +0000

Microsoft president Brad Smith on Tuesday promised that the company will pay more for electricity and will subsidize the expansion of the electrical grid in an attempt to head off higher costs for individual households. The company’s promise follows growing concern about new data centers driving ...

Microsoft Pledges to Pay More for Electricity, Drawing Praise From Trump

admin — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 13:58:47 +0000

The tech giant is responding to concerns that data centers are driving up electricity costs in some communities.

Salesforce rolls out new Slackbot AI agent as it battles Microsoft and Google in workplace AI

admin — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 13:00:00 +0000

Salesforce on Tuesday launched an entirely rebuilt version of Slackbot, the company's workplace assistant, transforming it from a simple notification tool into what executives describe as a fully powered AI agent capable of searching enterprise data, drafting documents, and taking action on behalf of employees.

The new Slackbot, now generally available to Business+ and Enterprise+ customers, is Salesforce's most aggressive move yet to position Slack at the center of the emerging "agentic AI" movement — where software agents work alongside humans to complete complex tasks. The launch comes as Salesforce attempts to convince investors that artificial intelligence will bolster its products rather than render them obsolete.

"Slackbot isn't just another copilot or AI assistant," said Parker Harris, Salesforce co-founder and Slack's chief technology officer, in an exclusive interview with Salesforce. "It's the front door to the agentic enterprise, powered by Salesforce."

From tricycle to Porsche: Salesforce rebuilt Slackbot from the ground up

Harris was blunt about what distinguishes the new Slackbot from its predecessor: "The old Slackbot was, you know, a little tricycle, and the new Slackbot is like, you know, a Porsche."

The original Slackbot, which has existed since Slack's early days, performed basic algorithmic tasks — reminding users to add colleagues to documents, suggesting channel archives, and delivering simple notifications. The new version runs on an entirely different architecture built around a large language model and sophisticated search capabilities that can access Salesforce records, Google Drive files, calendar data, and years of Slack conversations.

"It's two different things," Harris explained. "The old Slackbot was algorithmic and fairly simple. The new Slackbot is brand new — it's based around an LLM and a very robust search engine, and connections to third-party search engines, third-party enterprise data."

Salesforce chose to retain the Slackbot brand despite the fundamental technical overhaul. "People know what Slackbot is, and so we wanted to carry that forward," Harris said.

Why Anthropic's Claude powers the new Slackbot — and which AI models could come next

The new Slackbot runs on Claude, Anthropic's large language model, a choice driven partly by compliance requirements. Slack's commercial service operates under FedRAMP Moderate certification to serve U.S. federal government customers, and Harris said Anthropic was "the only provider that could give us a compliant LLM" when Slack began building the new system.

But that exclusivity won't last. "We are, this year, going to support additional providers," Harris said. "We have a great relationship with Google. Gemini is incredible — performance is great, cost is great. So we're going to use Gemini for some things." He added that OpenAI remains a possibility as well.

Harris echoed Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff's view that large language models are becoming commoditized: "You've heard Marc talk about LLMs are commodities, that they're democratized. I call them CPUs."

On the sensitive question of training data, Harris was unequivocal: Salesforce does not train any models on customer data. "Models don't have any sort of security," he explained. "If we trained it on some confidential conversation that you and I have, I don't want Carolyn to know — if I train it into the LLM, there is no way for me to say you get to see the answer, but Carolyn doesn't."

Inside Salesforce's internal experiment: 80,000 employees tested Slackbot with striking results

Salesforce has been testing the new Slackbot internally for months, rolling it out to all 80,000 employees. According to Ryan Gavin, Slack's chief marketing officer, the results have been striking: "It's the fastest adopted product in Salesforce history."

Internal data shows that two-thirds of Salesforce employees have tried the new Slackbot, with 80% of those users continuing to use it regularly. Internal satisfaction rates reached 96% — the highest for any AI feature Slack has shipped. Employees report saving between two and 20 hours per week.

The adoption happened largely organically. "I think it was about five days, and a Canvas was developed by our employees called 'The Most Stealable Slackbot Prompts,'" Gavin said. "People just started adding to it organically. I think it's up to 250-plus prompts that are in this Canvas right now."

Kate Crotty, a principal UX researcher at Salesforce, found that 73% of internal adoption was driven by social sharing rather than top-down mandates. "Everybody is there to help each other learn and communicate hacks," she said.

How Slackbot transforms scattered enterprise data into executive-ready insights

During a product demonstration, Amy Bauer, Slack's product experience designer, showed how Slackbot can synthesize information across multiple sources. In one example, she asked Slackbot to analyze customer feedback from a pilot program, upload an image of a usage dashboard, and have Slackbot correlate the qualitative and quantitative data.

"This is where Slackbot really earns its keep for me," Bauer explained. "What it's doing is not just simply reading the image — it's actually looking at the image and comparing it to the insight it just generated for me."

Slackbot can then query Salesforce to find enterprise accounts with open deals that might be good candidates for early access, creating what Bauer called "a really great justification and plan to move forward." Finally, it can synthesize all that information into a Canvas — Slack's collaborative document format — and find calendar availability among stakeholders to schedule a review meeting.

"Up until this point, we have been working in a one-to-one capacity with Slackbot," Bauer said. "But one of the benefits that I can do now is take this insight and have it generate this into a Canvas, a shared workspace where I can iterate on it, refine it with Slackbot, or share it out with my team."

Rob Seaman, Slack's chief product officer, said the Canvas creation demonstrates where the product is heading: "This is making a tool call internally to Slack Canvas to actually write, effectively, a shared document. But it signals where we're going with Slackbot — we're eventually going to be adding in additional third-party tool calls."

MrBeast's company became a Slackbot guinea pig—and employees say they're saving 90 minutes a day

Among Salesforce's pilot customers is Beast Industries, the parent company of YouTube star MrBeast. Luis Madrigal, the company's chief information officer, joined the launch announcement to describe his experience.

"As somebody who has rolled out enterprise technologies for over two decades now, this was practically one of the easiest," Madrigal said. "The plumbing is there. Slack as an implementation, Enterprise Tools — being able to turn on the Slackbot and the Slack AI functionality was as simple as having my team go in, review, do a quick security review."

Madrigal said his security team signed off "rather quickly" — unusual for enterprise AI deployments — because Slackbot accesses only the information each individual user already has permission to view. "Given all the guardrails you guys have put into place for Slackbot to be unique and customized to only the information that each individual user has, only the conversations and the Slack rooms and Slack channels that they're part of—that made my security team sign off rather quickly."

One Beast Industries employee, Sinan, the head of Beast Games marketing, reported saving "at bare minimum, 90 minutes a day." Another employee, Spencer, a creative supervisor, described it as "an assistant who's paying attention when I'm not."

Other pilot customers include Slalom, reMarkable, Xero, Mercari, and Engine. Mollie Bodensteiner, SVP of Operations at Engine, called Slackbot "an absolute 'chaos tamer' for our team," estimating it saves her about 30 minutes daily "just by eliminating context switching."

Slackbot vs. Microsoft Copilot vs. Google Gemini: The fight for enterprise AI dominance

The launch puts Salesforce in direct competition with Microsoft's Copilot, which is integrated into Teams and the broader Microsoft 365 suite, as well as Google's Gemini integrations across Workspace. When asked what distinguishes Slackbot from these alternatives, Seaman pointed to context and convenience.

"The thing that makes it most powerful for our customers and users is the proximity — it's just right there in your Slack," Seaman said. "There's a tremendous convenience affordance that's naturally built into it."

The deeper advantage, executives argue, is that Slackbot already understands users' work without requiring setup or training. "Most AI tools sound the same no matter who is using them," the company's announcement stated. "They lack context, miss nuance, and force you to jump between tools to get anything done."

Harris put it more directly: "If you've ever had that magic experience with AI — I think ChatGPT is a great example, it's a great experience from a consumer perspective — Slackbot is really what we're doing in the enterprise, to be this employee super agent that is loved, just like people love using Slack."

Amy Bauer emphasized the frictionless nature of the experience. "Slackbot is inherently grounded in the context, in the data that you have in Slack," she said. "So as you continue working in Slack, Slackbot gets better because it's grounded in the work that you're doing there. There is no setup. There is no configuration for those end users."

Salesforce's ambitious plan to make Slackbot the one 'super agent' that controls all the others

Salesforce positions Slackbot as what Harris calls a "super agent" — a central hub that can eventually coordinate with other AI agents across an organization.

"Every corporation is going to have an employee super agent," Harris said. "Slackbot is essentially taking the magic of what Slack does. We think that Slackbot, and we're really excited about it, is going to be that."

The vision extends to third-party agents already launching in Slack. Last month, Anthropic released a preview of Claude Code for Slack, allowing developers to interact with Claude's coding capabilities directly in chat threads. OpenAI, Google, Vercel, and others have also built agents for the platform.

"Most of the net-new apps that are being deployed to Slack are agents," Seaman noted during the press conference. "This is proof of the promise of humans and agents coexisting and working together in Slack to solve problems."

Harris described a future where Slackbot becomes an MCP (Model Context Protocol) client, able to leverage tools from across the software ecosystem — similar to how the developer tool Cursor works. "Slack can be an MCP client, and Slackbot will be the hub of that, leveraging all these tools out in the world, some of which will be these amazing agents," he said.

But Harris also cautioned against over-promising on multi-agent coordination. "I still think we're in the single agent world," he said. "FY26 is going to be the year where we started to see more coordination. But we're going to do it with customer success in mind, and not demonstrate and talk about, like, 'I've got 1,000 agents working together,' because I think that's unrealistic."

Slackbot costs nothing extra, but Salesforce's data access fees could squeeze some customers

Slackbot is included at no additional cost for customers on Business+ and Enterprise+ plans. "There's no additional fees customers have to do," Gavin confirmed. "If they're on one of those plans, they're going to get Slackbot."

However, some enterprise customers may face other cost pressures related to Salesforce's broader data strategy. CIOs may see price increases for third-party applications that work with Salesforce data, as effects of higher charges for API access ripple through the software supply chain.

Fivetran CEO George Fraser has warned that Salesforce's shift in pricing policy for API access could have tangible consequences for enterprises relying on Salesforce as a system of record. "They might not be able to use Fivetran to replicate their data to Snowflake and instead have to use Salesforce Data Cloud. Or they might find that they are not able to interact with their data via ChatGPT, and instead have to use Agentforce," Fraser said in a recent CIO report.

Salesforce has framed the pricing change as standard industry practice.

What Slackbot can do today, what's coming in weeks, and what's still on the roadmap

The new Slackbot begins rolling out today and will reach all eligible customers by the end of February. Mobile availability will complete by March 3, Bauer confirmed during her interview with VentureBeat.

Some capabilities remain works in progress. Calendar reading and availability checking are available at launch, but the ability to actually book meetings is "coming a few weeks after," according to Seaman. Image generation is not currently supported, though Bauer said it's "something that we are looking at in the future."

When asked about integration with competing CRM systems like HubSpot and Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce representatives declined to provide specifics during the interview, though they acknowledged the question touched on key competitive differentiators.

Salesforce is betting the future of work looks like a chat window—and it's not alone

The Slackbot launch is Salesforce's bet that the future of enterprise work is conversational — that employees will increasingly prefer to interact with AI through natural language rather than navigating traditional software interfaces.

Harris described Slack's product philosophy using principles like "don't make me think" and "be a great host." The goal, he said, is for Slackbot to surface information proactively rather than requiring users to hunt for it.

"One of the revelations for me is LLMs applied to unstructured information are incredible," Harris said. "And the amount of value you have if you're a Slack user, if your corporation uses Slack — the amount of value in Slack is unbelievable. Because you're talking about work, you're sharing documents, you're making decisions, but you can't as a human go through that and really get the same value that an LLM can do."

Looking ahead, Harris expects the interfaces themselves to evolve beyond pure conversation. "We're kind of saturating what we can do with purely conversational UIs," he said. "I think we'll start to see agents building an interface that best suits your intent, as opposed to trying to surface something within a conversational interface that matches your intent."

Microsoft, Google, and a growing roster of AI startups are placing similar bets — that the winning enterprise AI will be the one embedded in the tools workers already use, not another application to learn. The race to become that invisible layer of workplace intelligence is now fully underway.

For Salesforce, the stakes extend beyond a single product launch. After a bruising year on Wall Street and persistent questions about whether AI threatens its core business, the company is wagering that Slackbot can prove the opposite — that the tens of millions of people already chatting in Slack every day is not a vulnerability, but an unassailable advantage.

Haley Gault, the Salesforce account executive in Pittsburgh who stumbled upon the new Slackbot on a snowy morning, captured the shift in a single sentence: "I honestly can't imagine working for another company not having access to these types of tools. This is just how I work now."

That's precisely what Salesforce is counting on.