Managing thousands of customers while maintaining personalized service—this is the challenge keeping business leaders awake at night. Unlike purely transactional businesses, customer-centric organizations build long-term relationships that drive repeat business, referrals, and sustainable growth.
Slack's February 2026 release is one of the most consequential updates in recent memory. A redesigned Slackbot that functions as a full AI agent, a long-awaited split view for desktop, granular AI exclusion controls, and a compliance deadline that demands immediate admin attention — there's a lot to unpack. Here's everything you need to know.
| Category | What You Need to Know |
|---|---|
| Biggest News | Slackbot redesigned as a full AI agent — searches, analyzes, creates content |
| For Admins | AI exclusions, org-wide groups, security warnings for forwarded emails |
| For Users | Split view, message triggers in private channels, alt text reminders |
| Salesforce Integration | Six new Flow actions complete V2 parity |
| ⚠️ Critical Deadline | Export audit logs before April 30, 2026 (2-year retention policy) |
| Coming Soon | MCP server, real-time search API, updated Activity hub |
This isn't a minor update — it's a fundamental rethinking of what Slackbot does. Available on Business+ and Enterprise+ plans, the redesigned Slackbot operates as a personal AI agent directly inside Slack, with four core capabilities:
Intelligent workspace search. Ask natural language questions and Slackbot searches your permissioned conversations, files, threads, DMs, and canvases. It only sees what you can see.
Document analysis. Upload documents for summarization, comparison, and key information extraction. It can generate executive summaries from detailed content and distill long threads into actionable insights.
Calendar management. Check availability, schedule meetings, and send invitations — all without leaving a conversation.
Structured content creation. Slackbot can create canvases, generate meeting notes from discussions, draft project updates based on channel activity, and format data into tables and structured documents.
The key differentiator: no setup or additional tools required. It works through direct messages and uses your existing workspace context.
This has been one of the most requested Slack features for years, and it's here. You can now pin a thread, channel, canvas, or other content in a static side-by-side view while continuing to navigate in the main panel.
Right-click any thread, channel, or canvas and select "Open in split view." The pinned content stays visible on the right while you move freely on the left. Close it when you're done.
Practical use cases include keeping a requirements doc visible while responding in another channel, comparing two related discussions, editing a canvas while monitoring channel activity, or reviewing a long thread while clearing notifications.
Enterprise+ admins can now mark specific channels, canvases, and lists as excluded from all AI processing. Excluded content won't be searched by Slackbot AI, won't surface in AI-powered search results, and won't appear in AI-generated summaries.
This matters for attorney-client communications, M&A discussions, sensitive HR matters, competitive intelligence, and any content subject to regulatory restrictions on AI processing. Excluded status is visible to channel members, providing transparency.
To configure exclusions, navigate to the channel, canvas, or list settings and select "Exclude from AI." The recommendation is to create a documented policy defining which content types should be excluded and train channel owners on when to apply them.
Members can create no-code workflows that fire when specific keywords are posted in private channels — a capability previously limited to public channels. Think auto-creating Jira tickets when "bug:" appears in an engineering channel, sending alerts when "urgent" is posted in a support channel, or triggering compliance reviews when specific terms appear in regulated channels.
Important: Admins must explicitly enable this. Private channels are off by default for privacy protection. Enable it under workspace settings → Permissions → Workflow Builder.
Org Owners and Admins on Enterprise plans can now create and manage org-level groups directly from the org dashboard, either manually or via CSV upload. These groups can be assigned to roles, used to control feature access at scale, manage workspace memberships, and bulk-add members to channels.
A notable improvement: all IDP and Slack-created groups now appear together in the Groups section, giving admins flexibility to manage access without relying solely on IDP syncing.
Six additional Salesforce Flow actions bring the total to eleven Slack-native actions in Salesforce Flow Builder, completing parity with legacy Connected App-based actions and matching Agentforce action capabilities. If you're still on the legacy Connected App, this is your migration path. Salesforce admins should start testing the new V2 actions in a sandbox environment now.
When an email forwarded into Slack fails DMARC, SPF, or DKIM validation, a warning banner now appears on the message. It doesn't block the email — it flags the failure and recommends verifying the sender before taking action. This adds a meaningful layer of phishing protection to email-to-Slack workflows.
AI suggested channel sections. When you join a new channel, Slack now suggests which sidebar section to place it in based on the channel's content and your existing organization. One click to accept or dismiss. Available on Business+ and Enterprise+.
Canvas AI analytics. Admins can now track AI usage within canvases — daily, weekly, and monthly active users, total AI submissions, and 28-day rolling averages. Useful for measuring adoption and identifying training needs.
Alt text reminders. Members and admins can enable prompts for image descriptions during upload. Image thumbnails now display a badge showing whether alt text has been added — a welcome step for accessibility.
Enterprise search for custom sources. Developers can integrate internal data sources (wikis, knowledge bases, proprietary systems) into Slack's search, with real-time results that respect source permissions.
Three features worth watching:
Slack MCP server. The Model Context Protocol server will give external AI assistants secure, permission-aware access to your Slack workspace data. AI exclusions apply here too — excluded content stays excluded.
Real-time search (RTS) API. A public API enabling third-party apps to search Slack data in real-time without storing or indexing it locally. Privacy-preserving and permission-aware.
Updated Activity hub. A consolidated notification experience with a unified feed, flexible layouts, triage tools, and a page-based design replacing the current sidebar.
This is the item that requires immediate admin attention.
Starting April 30, 2026, Slack will enforce a two-year retention policy for audit logs. Any logs older than two years will be permanently deleted. This affects administrative actions, security events, and compliance audit trails. It does not affect message retention or file storage settings.
For organizations in regulated industries — financial services (SEC requires 5–7 years), healthcare (HIPAA requires 6 years), government contracting (DFARS requires 7 years) — this creates a significant compliance gap if you don't act.
What to do now:
Slack is discontinuing support for certain operating systems, app versions, and browsers on May 18, 2026. Audit your environment, plan upgrades, and communicate the timeline to affected users before the deadline.
This week:
This month:
Before April 30, 2026:
Before May 18, 2026:
Vantage Point specializes in helping financial institutions design and implement client experience transformation programs using Salesforce Financial Services Cloud. Our team combines deep Salesforce expertise with financial services industry knowledge to deliver measurable improvements in client satisfaction, operational efficiency, and business results.
David Cockrum founded Vantage Point after serving as Chief Operating Officer in the financial services industry. His unique blend of operational leadership and technology expertise has enabled Vantage Point's distinctive business-process-first implementation methodology, delivering successful transformations for 150+ financial services firms across 400+ engagements with a 4.71/5.0 client satisfaction rating and 95%+ client retention rate.