By : Wael Magdy

Salesforce recently announced more than 30 new capabilities for its Slackbot AI agent. The changes add meaningful value for users, sustain the starring role Slack has come to play at Salesforce, and help Slack remain competitive with rivals. However, a lack of transparency around security significantly detracts from the announcement, according to GlobalData, a leading intelligence and productivity platform.

Gregg Willsky, Principal Analyst, Enterprise Technology & Services at GlobalData, comments: “The latest version of Slackbot enables users to get work accomplished more effectively by serving as a unified interface to the Slack and Salesforce platforms. At its most basic level, users tell Slackbot what they need to accomplish, and Slackbot does so by pulling together relevant resources such as conversations, files, and data residing in multiple, often far-flung repositories. Over time, Slackbot gets to know users better, fulfilling their needs with greater speed and accuracy.”

In addition to delivering greater benefit to users, the new and improved Slackbot continues Slack’s emergence as a fixture within the Salesforce organization and keeps Slack neck-and-neck with competitors.

Willsky continues: “When acquired by Salesforce in 2021, Slack seemed destined to fall into a black hole. Instead, it has increasingly been embedded in Salesforce’s broader product fabric, positioned as the front end for Salesforce’s AI ecosystem and evolving into the default collaboration interface for the Salesforce platform. As a result, Slack has kept pace with rivals such as Cisco and Zoom, which are infusing their own platforms with the same type of cross-pollination that Slackbot brings.”

The question of security looms large over the new additions. Slackbot captures what the user sees, posing a substantial security risk. Data entered while using Slackbot is recorded, but it is unclear where the data is stored, whether it is encrypted, what privacy protections are applied, and what happens to data under special circumstances such as a legal hold. Another concern is the apparent lack of restrictions over how Slackbot can be used and the question of which permissions it follows, the user’s or its own?

Willsky concludes: “Security is a paramount concern across the technology spectrum. The security posture behind Slackbot is an open question and one with serious implications. Salesforce needs to articulate clearly what types of safeguards are in place to prevent Slackbot from igniting security nightmares.”