Salesforce Blocks AI Rivals From Using Slack Data (theinformation.com) 9
An anonymous reader shares a report: Slack, an instant-messaging service popular with businesses, recently blocked other software firms from searching or storing Slack messages even if their customers permit them to do so, according to a public disclosure from Slack's owner, Salesforce.
The move, which hasn't previously been reported, could hamper fast-growing artificial intelligence startups that have used such access to power their services, such as Glean. Since the Salesforce change, Glean and other applications can no longer index, copy or store the data they access via the Slack application programming interface on a long-term basis, according to the disclosure. Salesforce will continue allowing such firms to temporarily use and store their customers' Slack data, but they must delete the data, the company said.
The move, which hasn't previously been reported, could hamper fast-growing artificial intelligence startups that have used such access to power their services, such as Glean. Since the Salesforce change, Glean and other applications can no longer index, copy or store the data they access via the Slack application programming interface on a long-term basis, according to the disclosure. Salesforce will continue allowing such firms to temporarily use and store their customers' Slack data, but they must delete the data, the company said.
Gonna be some pissed customers (Score:2)
I'm familiar with some organizations that have been feeding their Slack data into a RAG for employee queries.
They're going to be quite pissed if this has been shut down by Slack.
They Haven't "Blocked" Anything (Score:3)
They've issued a policy decree.
The data still accessible, but the third parties are not supposed to store it long-term. They're supposed to delete it after a time.
How SalesForce/Slack could possibly enforce this would be the question. But, nothing is blocked.
Re: (Score:2)
How SalesForce/Slack could possibly enforce this would be the question. But, nothing is blocked.
They'll just wait until the next generation of AI startups are flush with cash and then try to guess at which one incorporated the data into an LLM model. This is a blind future cash grab.
Re: (Score:2)
A long game. I like it.
Good by Slack MCP (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Who's data is it really? (Score:2)
Seems to me like it's the customer's data, since they are Paying Slack. They should be able to do what they want with it, including giving it to a third party.