Slack Code taps into collective vibe, puts AI agents into the group chat

Slack has decided that AI coding agents have spent quite enough time alone with developers and would be better off doing their work where everyone can watch: on Slack. The Salesforce-owned chat factory has introduced Slack Code, which gives coding agents their own project channels where they can work alongside the humans supposedly keeping an eye on them. Slack calls this "multiplayer AI," which is another way of saying the coding bot is leaving the developer's terminal and joining the group chat. Tag an agent from a Slack conversation, and it can create a code channel for the job. From there, people can follow what it's doing, review its proposed changes, view live HTML previews, and tell it to change course when needed. Once the work is finished, the channel can archive itself, leaving behind a searchable record of what happened. Slack says each channel maps to a particular project, presumably sparing the main company chat from several hundred lines of an agent enthusiastically explaining why it has rewritten the authentication layer. The pitch isn't aimed solely at developers. Slack reckons product managers, designers, and other non-engineering staff can participate because they don't need to open a terminal or learn another specialist tool to see what the agent is doing. Its example has a product manager spotting a bug report, asking an agent to work out a fix, and then bringing in an engineer to review the resulting diff before the agent opens a pull request and merges the change. Slack summarizes the process as: "No ticket, no meeting, no waiting – just a fix, shipped." Slack insists humans remain in charge. Anyone in a code channel can pause, redirect, or stop an agent, while higher-stakes actions such as pushing code to production are supposed to be packaged up for an expert to approve. The company also says agents inherit Slack's existing permissions, security policies, and administrative controls rather than requiring organizations to build a separate management layer around them. Slack isn't planning to have the playground to itself. Anthropic, Cognition, GitHub, OpenAI's ChatGPT, and Vercel are among those developing integrations for Slack Code, with Claude, Devin, Copilot, and ChatGPT among the agents destined for its code channels. Slack says the APIs will eventually open to the broader developer community, with code channels potentially hosting agents doing jobs beyond software development, from marketing work to legal document review. Alongside Slack Code, the company is giving agents more conventional places to lurk. Agent DMs provide direct conversations with AI workers, while a new Agents tab lets users find agents, revisit sessions, check their status, or stop one that's gone wandering. An "Add to Slack" feature is also intended to make deploying agents built using third-party platforms a matter of a few clicks. Slack's argument is that much of this AI-assisted coding currently happens out of sight. A developer works with an agent in a terminal or browser, then brings the result back to everyone else when it's time for a review. Code channels put that process in Slack from the start, giving colleagues a chance to see what the agent is doing – and object before it gets too carried away. Slack says users can "get started with Slack Code today," although its announcement doesn't spell out which Slack plans have access, how broadly the feature is being rolled out, or which of the named coding-agent integrations are available at launch. The Register has asked Slack for clarification. Whether watching a bot write software alongside your coworkers marks the future of collaborative development or simply gives everyone another Slack channel to monitor remains to be seen. Either way, the coding agent is joining the group chat. ®