Slack just turned chat into a no-code app builder
Need a dashboard or poll? Just ask Slackbot. Slackforce Surfaces lets teams create reports, dashboards, polls and microsites without leaving chat.
Chat is becoming more than chat. The company has announced Slackforce Surfaces, an AI-powered feature that lets users create interactive tools directly inside a conversation.
Instead of opening another analytics tool, form builder or presentation app, users can tell Slackbot what they need and build it within Slack.
From a prompt to a working tool
Slackforce Surfaces can create reports, dashboards, polls, presentations, calculators, microsites and other interactive objects using plain-language prompts. A sales manager could ask for a pipeline summary. A support team could create a dashboard for its open queue.
A team tracking AI usage could request a visual report showing token consumption across departments.
Slackbot can pull relevant information from conversations and connected apps such as Google Drive and Salesforce.
Once created, a Surface can be shared with colleagues, pinned to a channel and used for comments or interaction. That makes the feature less like a chatbot and more like a lightweight app builder sitting inside Slack.
Why Slack wants this inside the conversation
Workplace tools often come with a small learning curve. Building a dashboard may require a specialist, while creating a polished report can mean moving between several applications. Slackforce Surfaces tries to remove some of that friction.
Users can simply describe the output they want instead of figuring out which tool to open first. That could be particularly useful for teams already spending much of their working day in Slack. The idea is not necessarily to replace dedicated business software. It is to handle smaller jobs without making people leave the conversation.
Slackbot is getting more ambitious
Surfaces also fits into Slack’s wider effort to make theirbot more useful at work. The AI assistant can already help summarise conversations, find information across message history and support tasks such as scheduling.
Slack has also added capabilities including code execution, slide creation and image generation. Surfaces takes that one step further. Slackbot can move from answering a question to producing something a team can actually use.
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There is still the data question
That convenience comes with an obvious consideration: workplace data. Slack says Surfaces will use information that users have permitted its AI tools to access. That includes data from conversations and connected services, making permissions and company policies important for businesses adopting the feature.
Availability can also vary by workspace and plan. Reports indicate that Slackforce Surfaces is being rolled out to customers with Slackbot enabled, while live data support is expected from October.
For Slack, the bigger idea is that the chat window does not have to be just where work is discussed. It can also be where small pieces of that work get built.