We all know that Slack is a rich source of knowledge in a company - a constant exchange of conversations, information, and documentation. However, it is also a source of chaos. People ask questions and get blocked on finding answers. At the same time, teammates spend time and effort manually answering questions. Glean in Slack - also known as Gleanbot - addresses both of these problems. It jumps in automatically when it knows the answer to a question, and it responds when tagged by name.
Glean automatically answers questions and responds when tagged
Glean automatically answers questions and responds when tagged You can configure this in Admin console (wrench icon) > Data sources > Slack > Glean in Slack.
  • In the past, Glean in Slack surfaced results based on matching Answers. This legacy version of Glean in Slack was deprecated in February 2024.
  • Glean’s app uses AI so please keep in mind that not all chat results may be fully accurate.

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What you can do with Glean in Slack

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1. Answer questions

When a teammate asks a question in a Slack channel, Glean can jump in with a helpful answer. It can respond either automatically when a question is detected, or when someone mentions @Glean in a message. How it works First, Glean must be enabled in either your entire Slack workspace or in a particular channel. When Glean registers a question, it searches across all the knowledge in the company - previous Slack messages, knowledge articles, etc. - to generate a response to the person’s question. The answer is shown privately to the person who asked the question, and just like Glean Search and Glean Chat, it respects the content permissions of that person. In other words, answers are personalized and only based on content that you have access to. If the response was helpful, you can choose to share it publicly. If it wasn’t helpful, you can mark it as “Not helpful” to help Glean get better.
Glean response example
If the person who has asked the question has neither shared nor dismissed Glean’s response, Glean posts a message allowing teammates to request their own response.
Request Glean response
Glean adds emoji reactions to the original message where it detected a question, to let teammates know it might have a relevant suggestion. Reactions will only appear in channels where Glean is explicitly added. By default, the reactions are:
  • 👀 for suggestion made
  • ✅ for suggestion shared in channel
  • 👎 for suggestion not helpful
Configuring when Glean responds By default, Glean only responds automatically when it has a confident answer to a question. This is by design, to avoid creating noise. In certain channels, you may want to but you can tune how often Glean responds in a particular channel by typing /glean configure within Slack and selecting from a menu of options.
Configuring Glean responses
If you want a guaranteed response from Glean in a channel or a thread, you can enable responses when someone mentions @Glean explicitly. You can ask Glean to answer questions, summarize a thread, or anything else. As always, Glean’s response is personalized to the person who asked the question, and only based on content that person has permission to access. While you can configure how often Glean responds, certain behaviors are not configurable:
  • Glean will not respond in channels that include external parties, so as to avoid inadvertently leaking information
  • Glean will not automatically respond in threaded messages, so as to avoid noise
  • Glean will only respond to queries by people who have access to Glean Assistant
  • Glean may not respond if calls have exceeded a rate limit

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2. Search from any channel with /glean

In addition to answering questions, you can search Glean directly within Slack. Simply type /glean followed by your search query in any channel. The results will only be visible to you, and you have the option to share search results publicly.
Searching with /glean command
This feature is enabled by default, and can’t be modified. It is available to all Glean customers who have installed Glean’s Slack app, and it does not require Glean Assistant access.

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How to set up Glean in Slack

  • As part of configuration, you will need to deploy the Glean app in Slack. The scopes required for the Glean app are provided in Glean’s setup page for Slack.
  1. In the Glean Admin console navigate to Data sources > Add data source and select Slack.
  2. In the Setup page, follow the on-screen instructions to install the Glean App from the Slack Marketplace into your Slack Workspaces.
Setup Slack in Glean
  1. After you’ve completed the set up steps, click Authorize. Once successfully authorized, the Glean in Slack tile appears.

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Use Glean in Slack

With Glean in Slack, you can do the following:
  • Search with /glean
  • Enable Gleanbot to respond in channels
  • Daily digest
Setup Slack in Glean

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Search with /glean

When Slack is set up, a teammate can type /glean followed by their search query in any channel. Glean shows search results across any data source so teammates can find what they’re looking for without leaving Slack.
Glean in Slack settings

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Enable Gleanbot to respond in channels

  1. Click on the Glean in Slack tab in the Admin console and toggle on Enable Gleanbot to respond in channels.
    Glean in Slack settings
  2. In the Channel Settings, specify how Glean should respond:
    1. Respond in all channels where Glean is added using the /add command, and all public channels (recommended for maximum reach)
    2. Respond in all channels where Glean is added using the /add command
    3. To restrict Glean to only reply in certain channels, select Respond in a specified set of channels where Glean is added using the /add command option.
      1. Search the channels that you would like Glean to reply and add them.
      2. Alternatively, you can also specify channel IDs manually to specify the channels.
        Glean in Slack settings
        To find a channel’s channel ID, go to the channel in Slack and click on the channel name in the top bar. In the modal that appears, scroll down to the bottom of the About tab. Copy the channel ID shown and paste it into Glean.
        Finding channel ID in Slack
  3. In the Emoji Reactions, configure the emoji reactions from Glean on messages that trigger a response to inform teammates of its status.
  4. Once you’ve specified all the setting, click Save.

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Add Glean to Slack channels

To make Glean active and available in a specific Slack channel, add the app to the channel:
  1. Go to the Slack channel where you want to add Glean and type /add.
  2. Select Add apps to this channel and select Glean. For more information, see Guide to apps in Slack for how to add apps to a channel.
Configuring Glean channels

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Turn off responses from Glean in Slack

If you want Glean to stop responding to questions in specific channels, use one of the following methods:
  1. Configure Glean to not respond in the channel. Go to the channel in Slack, type /glean configure, and select “Don’t respond”.
  2. Remove Glean from the channel. First, ensure that Glean is not set to respond in all channels in Glean Workspace Settings (see Setup). Then, make sure that Glean is removed from the channel in Slack. You can remove the Glean app from a channel by typing /remove @Glean.

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Daily digest

Allow teammates to receive a daily digest of channels that they choose. For more information, see Glean in Slack: Daily Digest.
Configuring Glean channels

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Estimating cost

Glean in Slack uses Glean Assistant and generative AI under the hood. If you are using Glean’s Azure OpenAI key, there is no additional cost to you. If you are using your own key, then turning on automatic answers in channels incurs cost. Please work with Glean sales or customer success to get an estimated range of the cost, depending on the number of channels in which you enable Glean.