Salesforce Enhances Slack with Developer Tools for Seamless Access to Conversational Data

 

 

 

Salesforce is taking Slack to the next level, announcing a major evolution that empowers partners and developers with a suite of advanced tools to securely connect AI capabilities with a comprehensive and customer-controlled repository of conversational data. This move aims to give organizations more control, flexibility, and intelligence over the way they manage and leverage conversations within Slack.

 

Among the key enhancements are a new real-time search (RTS) API, a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, and a set of improved developer tools, including prebuilt Block Kit Tables. Together, these features enable secure, flexible, and agent-ready access to conversational data, allowing developers to create smarter workflows, automate tasks, and integrate AI in ways that respect data privacy and ownership.

 

These innovations signal Salesforce’s commitment to expanding Slack beyond a messaging platform into a powerful ecosystem for AI-driven collaboration. By providing partners and developers with these tools, Slack can now support richer, more intelligent applications that harness conversational insights while keeping customer data secure and under their control.

 

Let’s dive deeper into what each of these new features offers and explore the potential impact they could have across the Slack ecosystem and the broader enterprise landscape.

 

New Slack Capabilities Explained

 

Salesforce is pushing Slack into its “next evolution,” equipping developers and partners with advanced tools to securely connect AI with the rich, customer-controlled conversational data generated within the platform. While AI agents rely on data, context is what makes them truly powerful—and the richest context comes from conversations.

 

“Conversational data is the gold of the agentic era, yet it’s been trapped in unstructured messages and chats, largely inaccessible to employees and applications alike,” Salesforce explains.

Enter Slack: the work operating system for the agentic enterprise.

 

With the latest tools, AI agents can now move beyond generic responses, delivering context-aware, personalized interactions that make AI more relevant, accurate, and actionable. Salesforce highlighted several major companies—including Anthropic, Google, Perplexity, Writer, Dropbox, Notion, Cognition Labs, Vercel, and Cursor—that are already leveraging these capabilities to build compelling AI applications and agents that operate natively within Slack.

By securely tapping into Slack’s conversational data, intelligence is brought directly into the workflow, helping organizations accelerate growth. “This isn’t just about integrations; it’s a new way to build and a new way to work,” Salesforce emphasizes.

 

Building agents directly in Slack also addresses the problem of app fragmentation, which often leads to low adoption rates. With over 200,000 SaaS companies in the world and enterprises typically using 1,000+ apps, employees waste countless hours switching between tools, copying and pasting data, and losing context—reducing productivity by up to 40%. Salesforce notes that nearly half of SaaS licenses go unused as shelfware. By embedding AI-powered applications directly into Slack, developers can help organizations streamline their tech stack and make Slack “the 2% of your IT budget that maximizes the return on the other 98%.”

 

What Companies Can Achieve With Slack’s Upgrade

 

  • Unlock Unstructured Data: Organizations can securely access the vast knowledge hidden in Slack conversations, enriching AI and agent capabilities.

  • Accelerate Decision-Making: Connecting app data (like Agentforce Sales or Workday) with Slack conversations provides full context, improving AI-driven search and enabling faster, more informed decisions.

  • Increase Productivity: Integrating apps and agents directly into workflows reduces context switching and cuts hours of manual research.

  • Bridge the ‘Adoption Gap’: Partner and developer apps are embedded into the flow of work, helping employees actually use the tools available.

  • Ensure Security and Compliance: Enterprise-grade security, privacy controls, and granular permissions ensure data protection while enabling agentic collaboration.

A Closer Look at the RTS API and MCP Server

 

Slack’s expanded developer platform is built for agentic AI, enabling companies to create powerful, custom AI agents that securely access rich conversational context.

 

  • Real-Time Search (RTS) API: This API gives apps immediate access to the most current conversations, files, and channels in Slack. By providing focused, contextual data without bulk downloading or storing it elsewhere, the RTS API empowers AI to act intelligently while respecting existing permissions. Only the messages and files relevant to a query are returned, ensuring precise, contextual results.

  • Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server: The MCP server standardizes how large language models (LLMs), AI apps, and agents discover contextual information and execute tasks. It establishes a consistent, unified layer between LLMs and Slack, eliminating fragmented integrations. Developers no longer need to manually configure every task or build service-specific integrations, while permissions remain user-specific.

Together, the RTS API and MCP server allow AI-powered applications to access real-time, context-rich Slack data securely. This enables developers to move beyond basic integrations and create intelligent, workflow-driven experiences. Agents can now search, analyze, and act on Slack data to provide more accurate, personalized outcomes, reducing hallucinations and boosting reliability. These tools are available not just to marketplace apps but also to customers building custom applications internally, giving them full control over their Slack data.

 

Additional Innovations

 

  • Slack Work Objects: Developers can now connect app data directly to Slack conversations with rich app previews, including file descriptions, images, and embedded content. This standardizes how third-party data is displayed and allows teams to take action—like completing Asana tasks—without leaving Slack.

  • Agentic Developer Tools: A suite of new resources, including AI best practices, prebuilt Block Kit Tables, and an updated CLI for Bolt apps, streamlines the entire development lifecycle from coding to deployment.

  • Marketplace Integrations: Third-party apps in the Slack Marketplace enhance the unified ecosystem for human-AI collaboration, making it easy for customers to discover and securely extend Slack functionality.

The RTS API and MCP server are currently in closed beta, with general availability expected in early 2026. Third-party AI agents leveraging these tools are already available on the Slack Marketplace, and Slack Work Objects will be generally available to developers in late October. New agentic developer tools are available immediately.

 

Conclusion 

 

Echoing its earlier Salesforce Channels announcement, the cloud giant is focused on providing customers with a unified workspace that minimizes fragmented workflows, allowing users to work with fewer open tabs. The new developer tools continue this approach by streamlining processes and embedding apps directly within Slack, making them more intuitive and accessible for everyday team use.