Enable Gleanbot to respond in Slack channels

Glean provides helpful, AI-generated answers directly in Slack channels, either automatically or when explicitly tagged.

Process flow

1. Enable Glean: Enable Glean either in your entire Slack workspace or within the specific channel.

2. Detect query: When a question is detected either automatically or via an @Glean mention, Glean registers the query.

3. Search knowledge: Glean searches across all company knowledge (previous Slack messages, knowledge articles, etc.) to generate a response.

4. Display the View prompt: For reactive and proactive private responses, Glean posts a message indicating that a response is available. Users must select View to see it.

   

5. Generate the response: After the user clicks View, they can select ✨ Generate to have Glean prepare the response. Glean then displays a private Only visible to you — Generating your answer.. message while it prepares the response.

   • Enforce permissions: Like Glean Search and Chat, the final response respects individual content permissions. This ensures the answer includes only data the user is authorized to access.
   

6. User action & feedback: Users can review and interact with responses using the following controls:

   • Feedback buttons: Select the thumbs-up or thumbs-down icon to give feedback on the response.
   • Delete: Select the trash icon to remove the response.

Post-response communication

Glean uses specific signals to communicate its activity and solicit feedback:

• Glean adds emoji reactions to the original message where it detected a question, to communicate answer state and feedback status. Reactions appear only in channels where Glean is explicitly added. The default reactions are:

  • ⏳ (hourglass) while Glean is processing
  • 👀 (eyes) when a suggestion is available
  • ✅ (white check mark) when a suggestion is shared in channel
  • ⚠️ (warning) when a suggestion is marked not helpful

  Admins can customize the emoji used for the suggestion available, shared in channel, and not helpful reactions from the Glean in Slack admin page. The processing reaction remains the default ⏳ hourglass.

  note

  Emoji reactions are not added in DMs, proactive triggers, or generate answer / search my sources triggers.

• If the original user has neither shared nor deleted Glean's response, Glean posts a follow-up message allowing other users to request their own response.

  

View sources

Users can open a sources modal from the Slack response to inspect the sources cited in Glean's answer.

How sources are displayed

• Source titles are shown as plain text. The clickable link appears on the datasource or site name row, not on the title.

• The modal does not show source snippets or other source content.

• The modal can show all sources, even when the viewing user lacks access to certain documents. Private sources still display the title and link, but do not show snippets.

  

Source attribution in the message

The Slack response itself shows the source count and up to 3 unique datasource icons above the action buttons.

Action buttons and overflow menu

Each Slack response displays a maximum of three buttons, including the overflow menu (⋯). If more actions are available, they move into the overflow menu. The layout varies depending on the scenario.

Default layout (no primary action)

If a response excludes a primary action, such as Post in thread, the visible buttons are:

1. View sources
2. Open in Glean

If Find more information is available, it appears in the overflow menu.

Private responses with a primary action

When Post in thread is available, it remains the primary visible button. View sources, Open in Glean, Find more information, and other primary actions such as Create Google Doc move into the overflow menu in that order.

Write-action and approval flows

• Write-action flows: Keep one write action, such as Code Writer, visible outside the menu.
• Human-in-the-loop (HITL) flows: Keep Approve and Deny visible outside the menu.

In both flows, all other actions move into the overflow menu.

Enable Gleanbot to respond in channels

1. In the Glean Admin console, navigate to Platform > Embedded integrations.
2. Select Glean in Slack.

note

This option only appears after the Slack data source has been configured. For setup instructions, see Set up Slack connectors.

3. Under Slack datasource, select your Slack datasource. This dropdown lists all Slack sources where Glean in Slack tab is configured.

4. Under Which channels should Glean reply in?, select one of the following options:

   • All public channels and when added to others: Glean replies in all public channels and any other channels where it has been added (recommended for maximum reach).

   • Don't reply in channels: Glean does not reply in any channels.

   • Only when added to channels: Glean replies only in channels where it has been explicitly added.

   • Custom channel list: Glean replies only in a specific set of channels. Select Manage channels to configure the list. In the Manage channel rollout, do the following:

     • Search for a Slack channel to add it.
     • Alternatively, add channels by channel ID. 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.

5. Toggle on Allow public replies in channels and choose your rollout preference:

• 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.

• Glean may not respond if calls have exceeded a rate limit.

  • All channels where Glean is active: Enables public replies across your entire Slack workspace.
  • Custom channel list: Allows you to specify the exact channels where public replies should be enabled.

  If Custom channel list is selected under Which channels should Glean reply in?, you can enable public replies only for channels in that list.

  

6. Toggle Reply to channels without being @mentioned.

   note

   This setting is dependent on the Allow public replies in channels option. If you disable public replies, Glean will automatically turn off mentions-free replies, and vice versa.

7. In Emoji Reactions, configure the Glean is working on a response, Response posted, Response upvoted, Response downvoted that Glean adds to messages that trigger a response.

8. Toggle Reply to messages from bots and workflows. When enabled, Glean can respond to messages from approved bots and workflows that @mention users in channels. Responses follow the same public or private visibility settings configured for the channel.

   Public replies in channel and Reply to messages from bots and workflows options appear in the configuration modal only if they have been enabled by an admin.

   
   note

   Admin and channel-level precedence: Channel owners can turn off Glean features for their own channels, but they cannot enable features that an admin has turned off. In channels with deployed agents, agent settings take precedence over the Glean in Slack settings described on this page.

9. In the Daily digest section toggle the switch to On.

   • Under Rollout configuration, choose which teammates can receive the digest:
     • All teammates: Enables the feature for everyone in the organization.
     • Set of teammates: Limits the feature to specific individuals. Add the names of the teammates you wish to include.

10. Click Save at the top right of the page to apply your changes.

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 /.
2. Select Add apps to this channel and select Glean. For more information, see Guide to apps in Slack.

Configure when Glean responds

By default, Glean responds automatically only when it has a confident answer, a design choice intended to avoid creating channel noise.

You can tune how proactively Glean responds in any channel by typing /glean configure in Slack and adjusting Reply to questions without being @mentioned. If your admin has enabled public replies for the channel, you can also turn Public replies in channel on or off.

If you want a guaranteed response from Glean in a channel or thread, mention @Glean explicitly. You can ask Glean to answer questions, summarize a thread, or help with other requests. As always, Glean’s response is personalized to the person who asked the question and is based only 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.

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:

• Turn off replies in the channel: In the Slack channel, run /glean configure, set Reply to questions without being @mentioned to OFF, and click Save changes.
• Turn off public replies in the channel: In the same modal, set Public replies in channel to OFF and click Save changes. This stops Glean from posting answers visible to everyone in the channel.
• Turn off workflow and bot replies in the channel: In the same modal, set Reply to messages from bots and workflows to OFF.
• Remove Glean from the channel: If Glean is not configured to reply in all channels from the Admin console, remove the Glean app from the Slack channel. To remove Glean from a channel, type /remove @Glean.