AI Hustle: News on Open AI, ChatGPT, Midjourney, NVIDIA, Anthropic, Open Source LLMs: Salesforce's AI-Infused Slack: A Treasure Trove of Powerful Features!

Welcome to the OpenAI podcast, the podcast that opens up the world of AI in a quick and

concise manner.

Tune in daily to hear the latest news and breakthroughs in the rapidly evolving world

of artificial intelligence.

If you've been following the podcast for a while, you'll know that over the last six

months I've been working on a stealth AI startup.

Of the hundreds of projects I've covered, this is the one that I believe has the greatest

potential, so today I'm excited to announce AIBOX.

AIBOX is a no-code AI app building platform paired with the App Store for AI that lets

you monetize your AI tools.

The platform lets you build apps by linking together AI models like chatGPT, mid-journey,

and 11Labs.

Eventually, we'll integrate with software like Gmail, Trello, and Salesforce so you

can use AI to automate every function in your organization.

To get notified when we launch and be one of the first to build on the platform, you

can join the wait list at AIBOX.AI, the link is in the show notes.

We are currently raising a seed round of funding.

If you're an investor that is focused on disruptive tech, I'd love to tell you more

about the platform.

You can reach out to me at jaden at AIBOX.AI, I'll leave that email in the show notes.

So the big news here is that Slack, which is of course a messaging platform owned by Salesforce,

is adding new AI functionalities and workflow features to enhance productivity and make

collaboration easier for its enterprise users.

So I think this follows like a month after the platform's redesigned user interface

received some mixed reactions from its global user base.

This is news to me personally, I didn't even know they did a redesign, I use it all the

time.

Did I not update it?

I don't know.

I have a downloaded app.

Anyways, I think the latest features were announced ahead of Salesforce's annual dream

force conference and include Slack AI, which is essentially this is a list capability and

an improved workflow builder.

So let's talk about Slack's evolving mission and all of this.

So according to Rob Seaman, who is the Senior Vice President of Enterprise Products at Slack,

the platform has evolved from being just a channel based messaging platform to a quote

intelligent productivity platform.

And the development really focuses on three key areas.

So number one is collaboration, which is, you know, the core function that Slack is widely

known for, right?

Messaging your colleagues on there, it's just a message place.

Number two is knowledge.

So they're really focusing on kind of positioning Slack as an essential knowledge repository

within a company.

This is interesting, right?

The reason I think like collaboration, of course, that's our business knowledge.

The reason I think this is interesting is knowledge is also another word in my opinion

for data.

So you know, they're positioning Slack as an essential knowledge repository, right?

Like you need Slack.

This is where all your company's info is.

If you want to find something about like what's going on in your company, you can find it

in your Slack.

They really want to make sure you're using Slack for everything, putting all your data

in there.

And then they have all of this really powerful data, which can be like used to train models

internally or externally or whatever.

There's a lot of things that pretty much the value in AI nowadays is in the data.

And so they're making sure that you put all of your quote, unquote knowledge, but really

all of your data in there.

So it's the most useful with AI.

The third thing that Slack wants to start focusing on is automation.

So really enabling users to automate tasks to improve productivity.

That is what every software in the entire galaxy alleges or aspires, maybe not alleges,

aspires to do.

So great, whatever, automation, improve productivity, cool.

In any case, not all new features, I think are going to be available immediately according

to the company.

So let's talk about Slack AI, which is, you know, and some of the first wave of features

that are going to be rolling out here.

So earlier this year, Salesforce promised new features powered by their proprietary

language models.

Now Slack AI is rolling out its first batch.

And these are the first three things that we're going to see.

Number one is channel recaps.

So AI generated summaries of channels for quick updates.

If you want to just get a quick update of what's going on in the channel.

This I feel like is a lot more useful for big corporations, have a ton of people messaging

in there.

It's kind of funny because I see, yeah, I see this where it's like, you jump in a channel

and there's like so much that has gone on since you were last there.

You're like, oh my gosh, I looked, I checked in like four hours ago.

How did like 100 messages that sent, but I don't want to scroll through all 100 messages.

So channel recaps very useful.

Number two is thread summaries.

So summaries of individual threads to quickly get up to speed.

Again, same problem with channel recaps.

Someone's going to start a thread and then they're like put like a hundred messages in

there.

And it's just like, you know, it's a lot to read.

I'm sorry that happened to you or congratulations.

You know, it's you got to read the whole thing to find out what's going on.

The third one is search answers.

So natural language search within Slack for rapid responses.

I think this is great.

I tend to think everyone should have better search responses.

I kind of hate it when like, like, I feel like the way I

search for things on software is so specific.

It's like, I can still remember like a specific email that has a core piece of information

in it.

And I like have to try to remember like a keyword that I would have like said within

that email, right?

Like taxes, 20, 20, like one or something random.

And then I could like find that email and I'm like, oh, yeah, here's like this important

document or thing that I need.

So it's kind of funny.

Anyways, I think that a better search, search using AI is a big way that AI is going to get

integrated into everything.

It's amazing.

It's just like being able to say, Hey, can you find me my email or my document or my

message about like, when I was talking about X, Y and Z at like some time around this time,

that is so much better than like having to go to Gmail and like try to like search by

date and like throw in like the right keyword.

Like I just, it's so, it's so ridiculous.

Honestly, sometimes I'll send myself an email with an important document and like all it

is is in a doc, a document attached and the, and the subject line is just like a keyword.

I know I'm going to try, I'll like remember to search in the future.

Like it's just ridiculous.

It's ridiculous.

We have to do that.

This AI searching so much better where you could just search for and find exactly what

you're looking for with natural language.

That's great.

So I think a lot of these features aim to improve users experience with a more streamlined

kind of approaches.

This whole thing, especially those who are re-entering a discussion after being away.

Also imagine, right, like you're on maternity leave or paternity leave, you're out of the

office on vacation for two weeks, you get back and you're like, what the heck happened

in this thread?

That's a great thing.

So I think the AI generated summaries and highlights and value by letting users cut

straight to important information without having to go through an entire conversation

history, which like conversations have the thing, like have this like phenomenon where

like, I say something, you say something, I say something, we're like discussing, we're

figuring something out.

By the end of the conversation, we come to like the consensus.

Of course, at that point, maybe it should have been like a quick call instead of like a

message thread or like a conversation on Slack.

But sometimes it is what it is and people are away and trying to get in between meetings.

So like, I get it.

You got to do what you got to do.

But it is really frustrating.

I imagine for people coming back like two weeks in and trying to figure out like a hundred

messages where it's like, all you need to know is like the outcome of the conversation.

You don't need to know like all the information as to what we debated about why this or that

or not this or that and like where it ended up just like give me a summary of the overall.

So anyways, the big thing that I think Slack is trying to do here is kind of building trust

and transparency.

So Seaman emphasized that one of the best features of channel recap is the display of

the source along with the highlights, right?

So it's not just going to give you like, here's the highlights of what you missed.

It's going to give you the source and you'll be able to click to the exact messages.

So you're not like worried, you're, you know, misinterpreting something.

If you are, you can click on exactly where the highlight came from.

And that kind of brings interest and transparency into the whole user experience.

I think the feature allows users to cross verify the information by clicking through to the source.

And yeah, you're not left wondering, like, is this actually what happened?

Or is this just what the AI is giving me?

And I don't want to read a hundred messages to find out.

So this is a very easy way to verify the facts.

The new search answers feature integrates generative AI into Slack search functionality,

offering summarized answers to natural language queries.

However, this doesn't replicate, like replace the existing search features,

but it kind of complements it, displaying summaries on top of the regular search results.

They didn't just like completely overhaul the search results.

They've just added an extra little thing on top that is hopefully going to make your life

a little bit easier.

So when it comes to security and compliance slacks, AI features are hosted within the

company's own virtual private cloud, ensuring data security.

Siemens stated that these AI capabilities will offer the same level of security and

compliance that customers expect from Slack with no data sent to or used by third parties.

And then talking about, you know, some more features.

They have lists and updated workflow builders.

Number one is lists.

So this new feature integrates work management capabilities,

allowing users to track projects from initiation to completion.

Very useful.

The second one is updated workflow builder, which essentially enables teams to create

automations without coding.

It includes an automation hub with built-in templates and allows integrations

with tools like Google, Asana, GRS, and other things.

This is something great about Slack, because we've got a lot of integrations that work great.

So talking and looking forward to kind of the future, what their plans are here,

I think Slack, AI, the work management features are kind of set to be piloted this winter

and are going to likely roll out in 2024.

Meanwhile, the improved workflow builder is already available to users.

Siemens hinted that this is just the beginning for Slack's AI functionalities,

as the company is also exploring additional use cases and features

that might be introduced later.

But I think, you know, Slack obviously is kind of continuing to innovate.

They're aiming to transform themselves into an all-encompassing platform

for enterprise productivity.

And I think the new features focused on AI and improved workflows

are designed to make life easier for the modern enterprise,

promising and efficient and secure user experience.

So definitely something I will personally be testing out in the next little bit.

If you are looking for an innovative and creative community of people using chat

GPT, you need to join our chat GPT creators community.

I'll drop a link in the description to this podcast.

We'd love to see you there where we share tips and tricks of what is working in chat GPT.

It's a lot easier than a podcast as you can see screenshots.

You can share and comment on things that are currently working.

So if this sounds interesting to you, check out the link in the comment.

We'd love to have you in the community.

Thanks for joining me on the Open AI podcast.

It would mean the world to me if you would rate this podcast wherever you listen

to your podcasts and I'll see you tomorrow.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.