Work management and productivity platform Slack is reportedly working on a new artificial intelligence (AI) feature. According to a report, the new feature is called AI File Summary, and it can summarize documents uploaded to the platform. The new feature is said to be able to summarize text-heavy files to help users quickly understand the gist of the topic. This is a low-development feature, so it may not be visible to current users. Additionally, once this feature is released to users, it may be limited to users with paid subscriptions to Slack and AI add-ons.
Slack is reportedly working on an AI file summary feature
A report by Android Authority details the under-development feature during the Application Package Kit (APK) teardown process. The publication found evidence of this feature in the recent Slack app for Android version 24-10-50-0. Several strings of code were reportedly discovered that not only shed light on the functionality of the feature but also listed its limitations.
Based on the strings, it appears that the AI feature may be introduced as a separate section on the platform, where users can upload files and get a quick summary of it. These summaries are called shareable and can be viewed when the file is forwarded to another conversation. However, a string also reportedly highlights that users can choose to disable the summary when sharing a file.
Strings also reportedly highlighted that the AI file summary feature on Slack will not work if the file size is too large or there is not enough text to summarize. At present, the defined limits of these margins are not known. Additionally, another string reportedly revealed that only certain file formats would be supported, and password-protected files would not be abstracted. As an estimate, it can be said that initially PDF, Word and text formats can be supported.
Additionally, the publication was able to retrieve more strings with the tag “AI file summary”, which exposed more functionalities as well as feedback systems that could be implemented. For example, Slack says users can edit and delete AI-generated summaries from file descriptions if they’re not satisfactory. However, this process is said to be irreversible.
Users can reportedly give feedback to Slack about how well the feature is working. Some of the things they could choose from based on the strings included feedback such as whether the information was accurate or inaccurate, whether it included too much or too little detail, and whether the layout was difficult or easy to understand.