Picture this: in a few years, your workplace conversations might lean more toward AI bots than your human teammates. That’s the vision from Slack, the popular messaging platform, where leaders see AI agents taking center stage in daily collaboration. As companies race to integrate smarter tech, Slack’s betting that jobs will soon revolve around interacting with these digital helpers as much as—or more than—flesh-and-blood colleagues.
A Shift in the Chatter
Ryan Gavin, Slack’s chief marketing officer, told Axios that the workplace is on the brink of a massive shakeup. “People are sleeping on how much this is about to change,” he said. He predicts that within three to five years, he’ll be swapping messages with AI agents as often as he does with people today. It’s not just talk—Slack’s parent company, Salesforce, is already rolling out Agentforce, a tool hitting Slack in early 2025 that’ll automate tasks like drafting notes or digging up info, all from your chat window.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff echoes the sentiment, dubbing AI agents the “limitless workforce.” At Davos last month, he told Axios’ Ina Fried that today’s CEOs might be the last to lead purely human teams. The pitch? Bots don’t just assist—they amplify what humans can do.
Real-World Testing
Some are already living this future. Take Laurel Mamut, a director at PwC, who’s spent a year working with 25 AI agents. She likens it to managing a squad of clever but quirky interns—brilliant at times, yet prone to slip-ups. “They’re inconsistent, sometimes forgetting details,” she said, but that’s part of their charm. She points to AlphaGo’s famous Move 37, where an AI rewrote the rules of the centuries-old game by thinking beyond human limits. For Mamut, that unpredictability hints at breakthroughs bots could bring to work.
The Flip Side
Not everyone’s sold. The rise of AI agents stokes fears of job losses, with critics like career coach Ken Plante warning that “a lot of today’s roles won’t survive tomorrow.” If bots can draft emails, fetch data, or even brainstorm, what’s left for humans? Slack and Salesforce argue it’s about augmentation, not replacement—freeing people for bigger-picture work. Still, the anxiety’s real as companies test how far these agents can stretch.
What’s Next
Slack’s not alone in this push. From Zoom’s meeting bots to OpenAI’s task-doing agents, tech is racing to weave AI into every corner of work. Gavin sees it as inevitable: soon, your Slack threads might be a mix of human wit and bot efficiency. Whether that’s a productivity dream or an unsettling shift depends on how it plays out—but one thing’s clear: the chat’s about to get a lot more crowded.