A new feature coming to Slack, called Slackforce Surfaces, will let users create interactive tools directly inside their chat conversations. This includes reports, dashboards, presentations, and even themed visualizations. Instead of exporting data to other platforms, users can now ask Slackbot, the company’s AI assistant, to build these tools based on their requests. Slackbot will gather data from relevant conversations and connected apps like Google Drive or Salesforce, then generate the requested content in real time. Once a Surface is created, users can share it with their team and pin it to a channel. Colleagues can then view, interact with, and comment on the tool. For example, a user asked Slackbot to create an arcade-themed visualization of AI token usage, and the AI assistant generated an interactive dashboard showing how tokens were used across different departments like sales, design, and engineering. “You’re not exporting your data to some other tool to make sense of it, you’re asking Slackbot to build the dashboard, the deck, the report right where the conversation already is, and your whole team can act on it together,” said Ryan Gavin, Slack’s chief marketing officer, in an email to The Verge. This update builds on recent improvements to Slackbot, which was recently redesigned to act more like a full AI assistant. Slackbot can now summarize information across channels, search through messages, and even help schedule meetings. In addition, Slack recently introduced “vibe coding” channels, which are designed for collaborative work and creativity. The company also highlights that Slackforce Surfaces can be used in many other ways, such as building a live dashboard for customer support queues or creating a weather-themed financial forecast that pulls data from connected apps. Slack emphasizes that the feature will only access information that users have authorized its AI tools to use. Slackforce Surfaces is available to all Slack users, including those on the free plan, as long as Slackbot is enabled in their workspace. The ability to use live data with Surfaces will roll out in October, allowing users to create and interact with real-time tools directly within their Slack conversations.