How to Add an AI Agent to Slack for Your Store Team

To add an AI agent to Slack, authorize its app in your Slack workspace, choose the channels it can use, assign an agent to those channels and limit what it is allowed to do. Your team then mentions it in a channel and gets the answer in a thread, without leaving Slack.

Questions about orders, stock and numbers come up in Slack all day. Answering one usually means leaving Slack, looking it up and pasting the answer back. An agent in Slack does that part for you. This guide uses Concierge for the exact steps, but the decisions apply to any AI agent you bring into Slack.

• Which job it has: A reporting agent in #ops and a support agent in #customer-questions are easier to trust than one agent that does everything.
• Which channels it can use: Start with one busy channel where the questions are already being asked.
• What it can look up or change: Give it what the job needs. Most teams start with lookups and reports.
• Who owns it: One person should read its answers in the first week and improve its instructions.

Here are the steps in Concierge. You need a Chargezen role that can change Concierge channel settings, and a Slack account allowed to install apps. The full version is in the Slack setup guide.

• Open Slack in Channels: In the Chargezen admin, go to Concierge, then Deploy, then Channels. On the Slack card, click Configure Slack.
• Start a connection: Click Connect new Slack workspace and give it a name your team will recognize, such as "Main Slack".
• Authorize in Slack: Click Connect Slack, review what it asks for, pick your Slack workspace and click Allow.
• Choose the Slack channels: Tick each channel Concierge should listen to. If a channel needs it, open that channel in Slack and invite the Chargezen app with /invite.
• Check the status: Under Verify Channel, Connection should say Connected and Workspace auth should say Ready.
• Assign an agent: Go to Deploy, then Agents, click Configure on the agent and tick the Slack channel under Channels and replies. Set Status to Active and save.

A Slack channel gets answers only once an agent owns it, and each channel belongs to one agent at a time. You can use different agents for different channels.

Each Slack connection answers only the event types you turn on, such as mentions or direct messages. Mentions are the safest place to begin, because the agent replies only when someone calls on it and stays out of your team's other conversations. Add direct messages if people want to ask without posting in a channel.

Messages posted by other bots are ignored, and every request is signature-checked to confirm it came from your Slack workspace. Those are worth asking about with any vendor, as our security checklist explains.

• Mention the agent: Type @, choose the Chargezen app, and write the request as you would to a colleague.
• It replies in a thread: The answer goes under your message, so the channel stays readable and the whole exchange stays together.
• Follow up in the thread: Reply in the same thread and mention it again. It remembers what you asked earlier in that channel.

Every Slack conversation also appears in the Concierge inbox, where your team can read it and step in. If a teammate takes over, the agent stays quiet until someone returns the conversation to it.

Two rules are worth knowing. When someone explicitly asks for an action the agent is allowed to take, it does it without a second approval. If the agent thinks of something else worth doing, it asks first, worded as an offer: "That order came from a subscription. Do you want me to cancel the subscription too?"

Email drafts have their own review. If you hold replies as drafts, a teammate can approve them with a button in Slack, and nobody has to open the admin for a quick yes. Refunds are different: agents never move money, so a teammate approves them. Read more in how to keep a human in the loop.

The real control is the agent's capabilities. An agent without a capability can't use it, however it's asked, and that matters more in a busy channel where anyone can mention it. If a channel is open to the whole company, assign an agent whose capabilities suit everyone in that channel.

Start with questions you can check, so the team learns to trust it. These all work well after mentioning the app:

• "How many orders did we get yesterday, and how does that compare with the same day last week?"
• "Find the order for jane@example.com and tell me where the package is."
• "Which customers wrote to us in the last 48 hours and still haven't had a reply?"
• "What were our best-selling products last month, and how much stock is left of each?"
• "Break last month's refunds down by reason and attach a spreadsheet."

Note that a shared channel makes the answer visible to everyone in it. Customer details should only be asked for in channels where everyone should see them.

• Answer real questions in public: When someone asks a question the agent could answer, mention it right there. Others will copy what they see.
• Pin five good examples: People ask better questions when they can see what works.
• Correct it in the open: Say "From now on, net sales excludes shipping" in chat. Concierge saves it as a memory, and the team sees the fix.
• Review the first week: Read the answers, note what was wrong and update the instructions.

Once one channel works, give each kind of work its own agent instead of adding more to the first one. Each agent has its own instructions, capabilities and channels, so a mistake in one job stays in that job.

Keep the number small at first. Two agents with clear jobs are easier for a team to understand than six with overlapping ones.

Concierge in Slack takes questions and tasks in threads, using the same tools, memory and rules your agents use on every other channel, and lets your team approve email drafts from Slack. See pricing for plans.

Keep reading: AI for ecommerce operations, talking to your AI employee from your phone and how to run a team of AI agents. Glossary: AI agent, AI coworker and approval workflow.

Yes. An AI agent connected to Slack can take a request when it is mentioned, reply in a thread and use whatever tools you gave it. With Concierge, that can include looking up orders, pulling reports and running back-office jobs.

Check what the app asks for when you install it, and limit which channels it uses. In Concierge, each connection answers only the event types you turn on, so an agent set up for mentions replies only when someone mentions it.

Slack is usually where your team works, so most businesses use it for internal questions and reports. Customers reach Concierge agents on website chat, text, WhatsApp, email and phone.

Yes. One agent can own several Slack channels, while each channel belongs to one agent at a time. You can also give different channels different agents, such as a reporting agent in #ops.