• As Anthropic suspends access to new models, India debates its AI future• Meta reportedly moves to unwind $2B Manus deal after Beijing’s demand• KPMG pulls report on AI usage due to apparent hallucinations• Amazon CEO reportedly raised Anthropic model concerns before government crackdown• OpenAI faces investigation from state attorneys general• Andrew Yang thinks the next big startup opportunity is lowering the cost of living• Anthropic’s safety warnings may have just backfired — the government has pulled the plug on its most powerful AI• SpaceX IPO: Live updates on everything you need to know• Meta’s months-old AI unit is a soul-crushing gulag, say the engineers stuck inside it• Chinese cybercrime operation that used AI to scam ‘hundreds of thousands of victims’ sued by Google• Mistral is rumored to be raising €3B at €20B valuation• SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI’s hot IPO summer• It’s hot IPO summer, and the MANGOS are ripe• Cheaper, faster, and culturally aware, Avataar’s video AI is built for India’s scale• Theker just raised $85M to build the factory robot that doesn’t specialize in anything• Our new community investments in Virginia support local jobs and expand energy affordability.• The latest AI news we announced in May 2026• 5 ways Google Search can level up your thrift and vintage shopping• How we used Gemini to build Google I/O 2026• Take our I/O 2026 quiz, vibe coded in Google AI Studio.• 9 demos of Gemini Omni and Gemini 3.5 in action• Check out real-life AI prototypes from the Futures Lab.• Catch up on 12 major I/O 2026 moments• Catch up on the Dialogues stage at Google I/O 2026.• We’re announcing new community investments in Missouri.• 100 things we announced at I/O 2026• A new experiment brings better group meetings to Google Beam• How AI Mode is changing the way people search in the U.S.• New ways to create and get things done in Google Workspace• I/O 2026: Welcome to the agentic Gemini era• New OpenAI Academy courses for the next era of work• How Preply combines AI and human tutors to personalize learning• Supporting Europe’s work in ensuring a trustworthy AI ecosystem • BBVA puts AI at the core of banking with OpenAI• OpenAI to acquire Ona• How an astrophysicist uses Codex to help simulate black holes• Access OpenAI models and Codex through your Oracle cloud commitment• PRC-linked influence operations are targeting AI debates in the US• From data to decisions: how LSEG is scaling trusted AI• How engineers at Nextdoor use Codex to build without limits• What Codex unlocks for Notion• Industrial policy for the Intelligence Age• Confidential submission of draft S-1 to the SEC• Built to benefit everyone: our plan• Introducing the OpenAI Economic Research Exchange• Save time and grow your business with new Gemini tools• Fluid, natural voice translation with Gemini 3.5 Live Translate• 4 ways soccer fans can catch every moment of the tournament• The latest AI news we announced in May 2026• How we used Gemini to build Google I/O 2026• 9 demos of Gemini Omni and Gemini 3.5 in action• Catch up on 12 major I/O 2026 moments• 100 things we announced at I/O 2026• Making it easier to understand how content was created and edited• I/O 2026• Introducing Gemini Omni• I/O 2026: Welcome to the agentic Gemini era• Gemini 3.5: frontier intelligence with action• Gemini for Science: AI experiments and tools for a new era of discovery• The Gemini app becomes more agentic, delivering proactive, 24/7 help• Google just redesigned the search box for the first time in 25 years — here’s why it matters more than you think.• Railway secures $100 million to challenge AWS with AI-native cloud infrastructure• Claude Code costs up to $200 a month. Goose does the same thing for free.• Listen Labs raises $69M after viral billboard hiring stunt to scale AI customer interviews• Salesforce rolls out new Slackbot AI agent as it battles Microsoft and Google in workplace AI• Anthropic launches Cowork, a Claude Desktop agent that works in your files — no coding required• Nous Research's NousCoder-14B is an open-source coding model landing right in the Claude Code moment• Best Universities To Study AI in 2026• 10 top women in AI in 2026• Pope Leo XIV Declares AI a Threat to Human Dignity and Workers’ Rights• ChatGPT Is Making People Think They’re Gods and Their Families Are Terrified• AI May Soon Help You Understand What Your Pet Is Trying to Say• Netflix Adds ChatGPT-Powered AI to Stop You From Scrolling Forever• Murder Victim Speaks from the Grave in Courtroom Through AI• China Unveils World’s First AI Hospital: 14 Virtual Doctors Ready to Treat Thousands Daily• Katy Perry Didn’t Attend the Met Gala, But AI Made Her the Star of the Night• Therapists Too Expensive? Why Thousands of Women Are Spilling Their Deepest Secrets to ChatGPT• Calendly vs. Google Calendar: Which should you choose? [2026]• The 4 best AI website builders• Claude 5: What you need to know about Anthropic's AI models and chatbot• The 6 best AI governance tools in 2026• What is generative AI?• What is Claude Mythos? And how to see it in action with Claude Fable 5• Google Sheets pivot table: A step-by-step guide• 5 ways to automate Meta's Conversions API tool with Zapier• How to automate Claude with Zapier• How Gourmet Ads uses Zapier MCP to turn Salesforce and Atlassian into a weekly growth report• How a two-person SEO shop is building an engine to run twelve clients in thirty minutes a month• Which AI models can you automate on Zapier? (Opus 4.8, Gemini 3.5 Flash, and more)• The 17 best AI marketing tools in 2026• The best customer experience software in 2026 • The best Docusign alternatives in 2026
SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI’s hot IPO summer
AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch

SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI’s hot IPO summer

The IPO market is back, and it’s not the same companies leading the charge. FAANG had a good run, but a new acronym is taking over: MANGOS — Meta (or Microsoft, depending on who you ask), Anthropic, Nvidia, Google, OpenAI, and SpaceX. Half of that bunch is heading to public markets in the same window, and it’s a stress test for investors, for valuations, and for […]

Our new community investments in Virginia support local jobs and expand energy affordability.
AI

Our new community investments in Virginia support local jobs and expand energy affordability.

We’re helping build the state’s next-generation workforce and investing in energy programs.

As Anthropic suspends access to new models, India debates its AI future
AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch

As Anthropic suspends access to new models, India debates its AI future

Tech leaders debate whether the Anthropic episode is a wake-up call for India’s AI ambitions.

Cheaper, faster, and culturally aware, Avataar’s video AI is built for India’s scale
AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch

Cheaper, faster, and culturally aware, Avataar’s video AI is built for India’s scale

Avataar AI's distilled video model is priced at $0.005 for every second of generation.

Amazon CEO reportedly raised Anthropic model concerns before government crackdown
AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch

Amazon CEO reportedly raised Anthropic model concerns before government crackdown

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy may have been the source of security concerns that led Anthropic to cut off worldwide access to two models on Friday.

Industrial policy for the Intelligence Age
OpenAI News

Industrial policy for the Intelligence Age

Explore our ambitious, people-first industrial policy ideas for the AI era—focused on expanding opportunity, sharing prosperity, and building resilient institutions as advanced intelligence evolves.

Meta reportedly moves to unwind $2B Manus deal after Beijing’s demand
AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch

Meta reportedly moves to unwind $2B Manus deal after Beijing’s demand

Meta starts dismantling its $2 billion Manus acquisition after Beijing ordered the deal reversed.

PRC-linked influence operations are targeting AI debates in the US
OpenAI News

PRC-linked influence operations are targeting AI debates in the US

A new report from OpenAI details PRC-linked influence operations using AI to target U.S. tech debates, data center narratives, tariffs, and false claims about ChatGPT.

It’s hot IPO summer, and the MANGOS are ripe
AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch

It’s hot IPO summer, and the MANGOS are ripe

The IPO market is back, and it’s not the same companies leading the charge. FAANG had a good run, but a new acronym is taking over: MANGOS — Meta (or Microsoft, depending on who you ask), Anthropic, Nvidia, Google, OpenAI, and SpaceX. Half of that bunch is heading to public markets in the same window, and it’s a stress test for investors, for valuations, and for […]

Introducing the OpenAI Economic Research Exchange
OpenAI News

Introducing the OpenAI Economic Research Exchange

OpenAI launches the Economic Research Exchange to study AI’s impact on jobs, productivity, and the economy. Applications are now open for selected research projects.

KPMG pulls report on AI usage due to apparent hallucinations
AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch

KPMG pulls report on AI usage due to apparent hallucinations

Once again, AI proves to be an unreliable source of information about AI.

How engineers at Nextdoor use Codex to build without limits
OpenAI News

How engineers at Nextdoor use Codex to build without limits

How engineers at Nextdoor use Codex with GPT-5.5 to investigate hard-to-reproduce issues, build across platforms, and focus on product outcomes.

How AI Mode is changing the way people search in the U.S.
AI

How AI Mode is changing the way people search in the U.S.

One year after launch, see how AI Mode’s users are shifting from keywords to natural language queries.

Catch up on the Dialogues stage at Google I/O 2026.
AI

Catch up on the Dialogues stage at Google I/O 2026.

A recap of the 2026 I/O Dialogues, where leaders discuss the future of AI, quantum computing, robotics and creativity.

New ways to create and get things done in Google Workspace
AI

New ways to create and get things done in Google Workspace

Announcing new voice capabilities in Gmail, Docs and Keep, a new design tool called Google Pics and updates to AI Inbox.

New OpenAI Academy courses for the next era of work
OpenAI News

New OpenAI Academy courses for the next era of work

OpenAI introduces three Academy courses that help people build practical AI skills, create repeatable workflows, and apply agents in everyday work.

Access OpenAI models and Codex through your Oracle cloud commitment
OpenAI News

Access OpenAI models and Codex through your Oracle cloud commitment

Access OpenAI models and Codex through Oracle Cloud, using existing commitments to build and deploy AI with enterprise security and governance.

We’re announcing new community investments in Missouri.
AI

We’re announcing new community investments in Missouri.

We’re helping build the state’s next-generation workforce and investing in energy programs.

What Codex unlocks for Notion
OpenAI News

What Codex unlocks for Notion

How Notion uses Codex to one-shot specs, build AI Voice Input for the web, and multiply engineering power across small teams.

Check out real-life AI prototypes from the Futures Lab.
AI

Check out real-life AI prototypes from the Futures Lab.

University of Waterloo students develop AI prototypes like sign language tutors to reshape the future of education and work.

Take our I/O 2026 quiz, vibe coded in Google AI Studio.
AI

Take our I/O 2026 quiz, vibe coded in Google AI Studio.

We used Google AI Studio to vibe code a quiz about our top I/O 2026 announcements.

How Preply combines AI and human tutors to personalize learning
OpenAI News

How Preply combines AI and human tutors to personalize learning

Preply uses OpenAI to launch AI-generated lesson summaries, providing personalised feedback and language learning exercises.

100 things we announced at I/O 2026
AI

100 things we announced at I/O 2026

We've been busy! Here’s a rundown of the top announcements, launches and demos at I/O 2026.

A new experiment brings better group meetings to Google Beam
AI

A new experiment brings better group meetings to Google Beam

See and hear your colleagues in true-to-life size and sound, making hybrid meetings feel more inclusive and connected.

I/O 2026: Welcome to the agentic Gemini era
AI

I/O 2026: Welcome to the agentic Gemini era

The latest from Google I/O: See how we’re helping you get more done with Gemini.

Anthropic’s safety warnings may have just backfired — the government has pulled the plug on its most powerful AI
AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch

Anthropic’s safety warnings may have just backfired — the government has pulled the plug on its most powerful AI

Anthropic isn't hiding its frustration. "We disagree that the finding of a narrow potential jailbreak should be cause for recalling a commercial model deployed to hundreds of millions of people," the company wrote in a blog post.

Catch up on 12 major I/O 2026 moments
AI

Catch up on 12 major I/O 2026 moments

Here are 12 of the biggest Google I/O 2026 keynote moments, including news about Gemini Omni, Gemini 3.5 Flash and more.

Mistral is rumored to be raising €3B at €20B valuation
AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch

Mistral is rumored to be raising €3B at €20B valuation

The funding round would value the company at around €20 billion (about $23.15 billion), nearly double its Series C valuation of €11.7 billion.

Andrew Yang thinks the next big startup opportunity is lowering the cost of living
AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch

Andrew Yang thinks the next big startup opportunity is lowering the cost of living

Andrew Yang made a list of everything Americans overpay for — housing, food, wireless — and thinks the next startup gold rush is giving that money back.

5 ways Google Search can level up your thrift and vintage shopping
AI

5 ways Google Search can level up your thrift and vintage shopping

Uncover second-hand scores with AI tools in Google Search and Shopping.

BBVA puts AI at the core of banking with OpenAI
OpenAI News

BBVA puts AI at the core of banking with OpenAI

Learn how BBVA scaled ChatGPT Enterprise to 100,000 employees and partnered with OpenAI to accelerate AI-powered banking transformation worldwide.

How an astrophysicist uses Codex to help simulate black holes
OpenAI News

How an astrophysicist uses Codex to help simulate black holes

Discover how astrophysicist Chi-kwan Chan uses Codex to build black hole simulations, helping scientists study extreme physics and test Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

The latest AI news we announced in May 2026
AI

The latest AI news we announced in May 2026

Here are Google’s latest AI updates from May 2026

Supporting Europe’s work in ensuring a trustworthy AI ecosystem
OpenAI News

Supporting Europe’s work in ensuring a trustworthy AI ecosystem

OpenAI supports the EU Code of Practice on AI content transparency, advancing provenance standards and tools to help people understand AI-generated content.

9 demos of Gemini Omni and Gemini 3.5 in action
AI

9 demos of Gemini Omni and Gemini 3.5 in action

Watch 9 videos showing the capabilities of Gemini Omni and Gemini 3.5, announced at Google I/O 2026.

How we used Gemini to build Google I/O 2026
AI

How we used Gemini to build Google I/O 2026

Learn how Googlers used AI to produce Google I/O 2026.

SpaceX IPO: Live updates on everything you need to know
AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch

SpaceX IPO: Live updates on everything you need to know

TechCrunch has followed SpaceX's start, struggles, and successes from the early days. And we're here for what happens next too. This package of SpaceX IPO coverage includes who stands to win (and maybe some who won't), pre-IPO deals, and what's tucked inside its S-1 registration document.

Theker just raised $85M to build the factory robot that doesn’t specialize in anything
AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch

Theker just raised $85M to build the factory robot that doesn’t specialize in anything

Unlike humanoid robots designed around a fixed form — think Boston Dynamics — Theker's machines are built to be reconfigured.

Confidential submission of draft S-1 to the SEC
OpenAI News

Confidential submission of draft S-1 to the SEC

OpenAI confirms a confidential S-1 submission to the SEC and has not yet determined timing for further action.

Meta’s months-old AI unit is a soul-crushing gulag, say the engineers stuck inside it
AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch

Meta’s months-old AI unit is a soul-crushing gulag, say the engineers stuck inside it

A new report suggests the unit, which employs 6,500 people, is on the verge of revolt.

Chinese cybercrime operation that used AI to scam ‘hundreds of thousands of victims’ sued by Google
AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch

Chinese cybercrime operation that used AI to scam ‘hundreds of thousands of victims’ sued by Google

The tech giant said a group called "Outsider Enterprise" used AI to scam hundreds of thousands of victims, sending 2.5 million text messages over a span of two weeks.

From data to decisions: how LSEG is scaling trusted AI
OpenAI News

From data to decisions: how LSEG is scaling trusted AI

See how LSEG uses OpenAI to scale trusted AI across its global business, accelerating insights, shrinking release cycles, and empowering 4,000 employees.

OpenAI faces investigation from state attorneys general
AI News & Artificial Intelligence | TechCrunch

OpenAI faces investigation from state attorneys general

It's not clear which states are involved, but they're asking about everything from OpenAI's ad policies to its handling of health data.

Fluid, natural voice translation with Gemini 3.5 Live Translate
Gemini

Fluid, natural voice translation with Gemini 3.5 Live Translate

Gemini 3.5 Live Translate brings near real-time, natural speech translation to Google AI Studio, Google Translate and Google Meet.

OpenAI to acquire Ona
OpenAI News

OpenAI to acquire Ona

OpenAI plans to acquire Ona to expand Codex with secure, persistent cloud environments, enabling long-running AI agents across enterprise workflows.

What is Claude Mythos? And how to see it in action with Claude Fable 5
The Zapier Blog

What is Claude Mythos? And how to see it in action with Claude Fable 5

On April 7, 2026, Claude Mythos Preview was officially announced, but it was apparently too dangerous to release. According to Anthropic, Claude Mythos represented a unique cybersecurity threat (they claimed that "the fallout—for economies, public safety, and national security—could be severe.") Instead of releasing Mythos to the general public, they spun up Project Glasswing, a cybersecurity initiative that also involved some big-name companies. The idea was that they'd be able to deploy Mythos

Calendly vs. Google Calendar: Which should you choose? [2026]
The Zapier Blog

Calendly vs. Google Calendar: Which should you choose? [2026]

Here's Google's simple (but powerful) software playbook: find products people like, make a Google-ized copy, and give it away for free. Love Dropbox and Zoom? Google Drive and Google Meet are solid substitutes, and you won't pay a thing. Calendly is the next app on Google's radar. Google Calendar's appointment scheduling feature, which started off as a barebones alternative, has gotten better over time. It's not as powerful as Calendly, but it's a reliable way for Google users to create booking

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

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

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.

Introducing Gemini Omni
Gemini

Introducing Gemini Omni

Introducing Gemini Omni, which allows you to create anything from any input and edit naturally using conversational language.

Best Universities To Study AI in 2026
DailyAI

Best Universities To Study AI in 2026

Artificial intelligence has made enormous strides in the past few years – with the introduction of a wide range of AI tools changing the landscape of how we assess data and operate within online spaces forever.  This page ranks the 50 best universities to study AI around the world, based on scope, prestige, and the level of AI-related research each institution has released. Career prospects in AI There is a huge demand for individuals with a high degree of skills in artificial intelligence and machine learning, making AI a potential lucrative career prospect with countless opportunities as AI continues to The post Best Universities To Study AI in 2026 appeared first on DailyAI.