Slack AI Agent Power-ups: Post & Read Messages | Chat Thing
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[← Back to blog](https://chatthing.ai/blog)Blog # What Your Slack Agent Should Be Doing (But Isn't)
Gem
17 Apr 2026
~ 3 min read
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### On this page
1. [Two Power-ups, One Big Upgrade](#two-power-ups-one-big-upgrade)
1. [1. Send Message](#1-send-message)
2. [2. Get History](#2-get-history)
2. [Who This Is For](#who-this-is-for)
3. [Setup in 4 Steps](#setup-in-4-steps)
4. [Example Workflow](#example-workflow)
5. [FAQ](#faq)
6. [Ready to upgrade your Slack agent?](#ready-to-upgrade-your-slack-agent)
# What Your Slack Agent Should Be Doing (But Isn't)
Most Slack bots answer questions when you ping them. That's it. They're glorified FAQ widgets living in a corner of your workspace.
Your Chat Thing agent doesn't have to be one of them.
With the Slack power-ups, your agent can post into channels, read conversation history, and actively participate in the work your team is already doing. It stops being a bot. It starts being a Slack teammate.
> ⭐ **Available on the Standard plan and above.** Slack power-ups are part of our Standard tier, so if you're on Free or Starter, you'll need to upgrade to unlock them.
## Two Power-ups, One Big Upgrade
### 1. Send Message
Your agent can post messages to any Slack channel where it's been added. Use it for:
- **Automated updates:** "Post the daily standup summary to #team"
- **Cross-channel alerts:** "Let #support know about this issue"
- **Research sharing:** Search for something, then post findings to a channel
### 2. Get History
Your agent can read the conversation history of any channel it belongs to. Ask questions like:
- "What happened in #general last week?"
- "Summarise the conversation in #product yesterday"
- "Did anyone mention the API outage in #engineering?"
## Who This Is For
Slack power-ups pay back fastest for teams that live in Slack all day. A few scenarios we see working well:
- **Support teams:** an agent monitors #support, answers common questions itself, and escalates the rest by posting to #support-escalation with full context.
- **Ops and people teams:** the agent posts a daily standup summary to #team at 9am, pulled from overnight conversations or your Notion standups.
- **Marketing teams:** when a new blog goes live, the agent posts a summary and a shareable link to #content.
- **Engineering teams:** ask the agent to summarise the last 24 hours of #incidents so your morning standup doesn't start with a scroll.
If your team already uses Slack as its nerve centre, these power-ups move your agent from "useful when pinged" to "part of the workflow."
## Setup in 4 Steps
1. Enable the Slack channel for your agent from the Channels tab.
2. From the Power-ups tab, add **Send Message**, **Get History**, or both.
3. (Optional) Lock each power-up to a specific channel, or leave it open so your agent can use any channel it's been added to.
4. Add your agent to each channel you want it to access. Just @mention it in the channel to invite it in.
That's it. Your agent is now a channel-aware Slack teammate.
## Example Workflow
In #general, a teammate asks: "@agent search for the latest AI news and post a summary to #research"
Under the hood, your agent:
1. Uses the Google Search power-up to find relevant news
2. Summarises the results
3. Uses Send Message to post into #research
Three power-ups working together from one natural request. That's the shape of what Slack power-ups unlock when you chain them with the rest of your agent's toolkit.
## FAQ
**Does my agent need to be in a channel to post there?** Yes. Slack requires bots to be members of a channel before they can read from or post to it. Just @mention your agent in any channel to invite it in.
**Can I restrict which channels the agent can post to?** Yes. Each power-up can be locked to a specific channel from its settings, so you can give your agent workspace-wide access or scope it to exactly one channel.
**Does Get History include DMs?** Get History works on channels where your agent has been added. Direct messages and private channels follow Slack's usual permission rules.
**How is this different from just adding Chat Thing to Slack?** Adding Chat Thing to Slack gives you a bot you can talk to. The power-ups give that bot the ability to act: post on its own, pull context from history, and chain tools together. It's the difference between a chatbot and a teammate.
## Ready to upgrade your Slack agent?
Slack power-ups are available on Standard plans and above. If you're already on Standard, Pro, or Enterprise, they're waiting for you in the Power-ups tab.
[**Start free and upgrade when you're ready →**](https://chatthing.ai?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=slack-power-ups#pricing)
📚 [**Read the full guide in our documentation**](https://chatthing.ai/docs/slack-channel#slack-quick-start)
### Related articles
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Sometimes the built-in power-ups aren't enough. The Use API power-up lets your agent call any REST API directly, so it can check hotel availability, pull live weather data, or query your own internal systems, no pre-built integration required.
[](https://chatthing.ai/blog/bot-to-bot-power-up) [Build Multi-Agent AI Teams with Agent-to-Agent
](https://chatthing.ai/blog/bot-to-bot-power-up)
Why settle for one generalist agent when you can build a team of specialists? The Agent-to-Agent power-up lets your agents delegate tasks, ask each other questions, and combine expertise, so complex requests get handled by the right expert every time.
[](https://chatthing.ai/blog/email-power-up) [Capture Leads with AI - The Email Power-up
](https://chatthing.ai/blog/email-power-up)
Every conversation your website agent has is a missed opportunity if it just disappears. The Email power-up changes that, letting your agent capture visitor details, flag bugs, and send conversation summaries straight to your team's inbox, no forms and no friction required.
- Previous
- [← Multilingual: Your Agent Speaks 50+ Languages](https://chatthing.ai/blog/multilingual-your-agent-speaks-50-languages)
- Next
- [Human Takeover: when the AI hits its limit, your team steps in →](https://chatthing.ai/blog/launch-week-01-human-takeover)
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