Slack is a chat app: a place the team talks to a workspace’s own AI, and GBrain answers there from the workspace’s memory. This page is for whoever sets it up. It covers adding GBrain to Slack, what each setting on the Slack page does, what GBrain keeps from Slack and who can read it, and how to take GBrain out again.
Slack comes with Team
A workspace on Team has Slack. Personal has no Slack, because a workspace on Personal has no AI of its own to answer there: people use its memory from their own AI instead. Compare the plans.
An admin adds GBrain to Slack in one click
Only an admin of the workspace’s organization adds GBrain to Slack or changes its settings. Everyone else in the workspace can open the Slack page and see every setting.
- In the workspace, open Integrations in the sidebar, then Messaging, and choose Slack.
- Choose how much GBrain reads. Slack’s own screen grants everything at once, so GBrain asks first:
- Only where it’s invited. GBrain sees and answers in the channels @GBrain is added to, and nothing else. The right choice when the Slack has a channel per client or team.
- Everything you can see. GBrain also reads every channel and message the person adding it can see, as that person, to build memory. GBrain never posts as them, and this reading stops on its own when a second workspace joins the same Slack.
- Press Add to Slack, pick the Slack on Slack’s screen, and approve.
- Back in GBrain, the workspace’s Slack page opens. In Slack, invite @GBrain to each channel it should be in, then press Refresh on the Slack page.
There is nothing to build in Slack and no key to copy. The first workspace added to a Slack answers in every channel @GBrain is in. A workspace added after it starts with no channels.
Each channel is Off, Read, or Read and write
The Channels section of the Slack page lists every channel @GBrain is in, each with three levels:
- Off. GBrain ignores the channel.
- Read. GBrain can look the channel up when someone asks about it, and never posts there.
- Read and write. GBrain also answers there, and what people say there goes to the workspace’s memory.
The top row, All channels the Slack bot @GBrain is in, sets every channel at once, and decides the level of channels @GBrain joins later. Setting one channel below it changes that channel alone. Each channel has one workspace that answers in it: a channel another workspace answers in says so, and offers only Off and Read.
GBrain answers when it is mentioned or addressed
In a channel set to Read and write, When it replies in channels decides when GBrain answers:
- Only when mentioned. GBrain answers only when someone @-mentions it.
- Mentioned or addressed. GBrain answers an @-mention, and a reply to it in a conversation it’s part of. Every new connection starts here.
- When it can add value. GBrain also joins in when a quick check says it has something material to add, and stays quiet when unsure. The check is a short call to a small model, billed to the workspace.
One setting covers every channel, and a channel can have its own. The setting decides only when GBrain answers: every message in those channels still goes to memory. Under it, Recent decisions lists why GBrain answered or stayed quiet, newest first, for 30 days, without what anyone wrote.
A question asked in a thread is answered in that thread. A question at the top of a channel is answered in the channel. GBrain puts 👀 on the message as soon as it has it, and the answer appears as it is written.
One workspace per client or team, all in one Slack
An agency can run one workspace for itself and one per client, all in the agency’s Slack. A company can do the same with a workspace per team. Each workspace answers only in its own channels, from its own memory.
There are two ways to add the next workspace:
- In the same organization. On the new workspace’s Slack page, Already connected here lists the Slack the organization already added. An admin presses Join, with no trip through Slack, then picks the new workspace’s channels.
- In another organization, when each client or team has its own members and billing. An admin of that organization presses Add to Slack on its workspace’s Slack page. They have to be in the Slack too, and the workspace can take only channels they are in. It never answers direct messages and never reads beyond its own channels, and neither organization’s pages name the other’s workspaces.
The main workspace can read every channel. A workspace of the organization that owns the Slack can set a channel another workspace answers in to Read. It looks that channel up when someone asks, and never posts there. It can read only channels the person who connected it is in, and the workspace that answers in the channel sees a note under it saying the main workspace can read it too. A Read channel isn’t saved to memory as messages arrive: GBrain reads it when asked.
Anyone who can message GBrain in a channel can be told anything that workspace knows. That is the reason for a workspace per client or team: each one’s channels only ever hear from that one’s memory.
What GBrain keeps from Slack, and who can see it
What people say in its channels goes to memory. In a channel set to Read and write, GBrain saves what people say to the workspace’s memory, whether or not it answers. Direct messages it receives are saved too. Posts by bots, GBrain’s own included, are not.
The memory belongs to the workspace. Everyone who can open the workspace can read what GBrain learned from Slack in Memory, and ask about it in Chats. GBrain draws on the same memory in every channel it answers in, so people there can hear what it learned elsewhere in the workspace.
A conversation can keep to itself. GBrain can also keep each Slack conversation to what was said in it, so what a private channel discussed never comes up in a public channel or a direct message. It is off until we turn it on for a workspace, so ask us if a team needs it.
Slack use is the workspace’s use. Anyone who can message GBrain in Slack is using the workspace, and what that costs is billed to the workspace.
Direct messages, for the people an admin picks
One workspace answers every direct message to @GBrain in a Slack. When a Slack has more than one workspace, the Direct messages row on the Slack page picks which.
An admin chooses who may message GBrain directly: Off, Selected people, picked from the Slack’s own directory, or Everyone in this Slack workspace. A new connection starts at Off. Off and Selected people also turn off group DMs, and searching Slack as the person who added GBrain. Anyone allowed can be told anything the workspace knows, and a direct message from them always gets an answer.
Removing GBrain from Slack
At the bottom of the workspace’s Slack page, press Disconnect with the Slack’s name, and confirm on the page that follows. GBrain stops answering in that Slack straight away, in every channel and every direct message. The workspace keeps its memory, chats and other connections.
Other workspaces in the same Slack keep it, and if this one answered direct messages, the next one takes over. When the last workspace leaves, GBrain forgets its sign-in to that Slack, and @GBrain stays in Slack until someone removes it in Slack’s own settings. If GBrain is removed in Slack first, the Slack page says the connection is no longer active: disconnect it there, and add Slack again whenever the team wants it back.
Slack is a chat app for the workspace’s own AI
Connectors are what an AI uses: Gmail, Linear, GitHub. Slack is where people talk to the workspace’s own AI, so ChatGPT, Claude or another AI connected to GBrain doesn’t read or post in Slack through it, and Personal, where people use the memory from their own AI, has no Slack. gbrainio refuses Slack too, and prints the page in each workspace that connects it.
To start, open the workspace, choose Integrations, then Messaging, then Slack.