Slack AI integration with Writer: An honest overview

Another day, another AI tool popping up in Slack, right? It seems like everyone is promising to boost your team’s productivity and smooth out the daily grind. One of the newer players on the scene is Writer, which is now available right inside Slack, bringing some serious generative AI power into the app your team already uses all day.

But with so many options out there, it’s hard to tell what’s actually worth your time. This post is a straightforward, no-fluff look at the Slack AI integration with Writer. We’ll get into what it does, what it costs, and where it might fall short, especially for teams that need solutions that work right out of the box.

What is the Slack AI integration with Writer?

Before we jump into the integration, let’s quickly cover what each piece of the puzzle is.

What is Writer?

Writer isn’t your average chatbot. It’s a full-on generative AI platform designed for big companies. Think of it less as a single tool and more as an entire workshop for building your own custom AI apps. It runs on its own language models (called Palmyra LLMs), connects to your company’s data with a system it calls Knowledge Graph, and has built-in guardrails to make sure everything the AI says is accurate and on-brand.

What does the Slack AI integration with Writer do?

The integration basically puts that AI workshop right into your Slack channels. It lets your team use the custom AI apps you’ve built on the Writer platform without ever leaving Slack. The goal is to keep everything in one place, so you can find company info or create content without constantly switching between tabs.

Key features of the Slack AI integration with Writer

The Writer integration for Slack is more of a toolkit than a single-purpose tool. Here’s a look at the main things you can do with it.

Build and use custom AI apps in your workspace

The big draw here is the ability to use AI apps that you’ve built yourself in Writer’s no-code AI Studio. These aren’t generic bots. You can create them for very specific jobs, like helping the marketing team write social media posts, giving the sales team a hand with proposals, or summarizing research for your product managers. It’s super flexible, but just remember: you have to build and set up these apps on the Writer platform first before you can use them in Slack.

Find company knowledge with a graph-based RAG

Writer’s Knowledge Graph is how it connects to all your company’s information. When you ask the AI a question in Slack, it can pull answers from your internal docs, wikis, and other business apps. This is a huge help for answering those tricky internal questions without making someone go on a treasure hunt through Google Drive or Confluence.

Use specialized, industry-specific AI models

Writer also has some specialized AI models, like Palmyra Med for healthcare and Palmyra Fin for finance. This means the AI can give much more accurate and relevant answers for businesses in those regulated fields. If your team needs information to be precise, having an AI trained on your industry’s lingo can make a world of difference.

The Slack AI integration with Writer: Setup, cost, and a few catches

The features sound great, but let’s be real, it’s the details like setup, price, and limitations that really matter when you’re deciding if a tool is right for you.

Setup and installation

Getting started with the Writer integration isn’t as simple as clicking "install" from the Slack Marketplace. Since its main strength is in those custom-built apps, your team first has to go into the Writer platform and actually build them. This gives you a ton of control, but it also means the setup takes longer and there’s a bit of a learning curve. It’s definitely not a plug-and-play tool you can get running for your support team in an afternoon.

Pricing plans

Writer charges on a per-user, per-month basis. This is pretty standard for software, but the costs can creep up, especially if you have a large support or IT team.

Here’s a quick look at their plans:

Feature	Starter Plan	Enterprise Plan
Price	$29/user/month (annual)	Custom
Users	Up to 20	20+
Custom Agents	Up to 5	Custom
Knowledge Graph	Basic (Google Drive)	Full access
Words Generated	200K words/user/month	Unlimited

Limitations for support and IT teams

This is where you might run into some trouble if you have specific, time-sensitive needs. Writer is a fantastic general AI platform, but its "build it yourself" model creates a few obstacles for support and IT teams.

• It’s a project, not a quick fix: The platform is built for deep customization, which is awesome if you have the time for it. But it’s not designed for teams who need to start automating support tickets, like, yesterday. It feels more like a toolkit for developers than a self-serve tool for a support manager.

• Missing support-specific features: Because Writer is a general platform, it lacks the built-in features that are really important for support teams. You won’t find things like automatic ticket sorting based on what the customer is asking for, sentiment analysis, or tools for creating new knowledge base articles from solved tickets.

• No way to test before you go live: The documentation doesn’t mention a simulation mode for testing how the AI would perform on old tickets. This makes it tough to know if you’ll get a good return on your investment or to catch problems before your customers do. You’re kind of launching it and hoping for the best.

A simpler alternative built for the job: The eesel AI Slack integration

While Writer gives you a powerful AI sandbox to play in, teams looking for a dedicated support and IT automation tool probably need something more focused. If that sounds like you, you might want to check out a platform like eesel AI. It’s designed to slot right into your current workflow and start helping in minutes, not months.

Get up and running in minutes

Unlike the multi-step setup that Writer requires, eesel AI is all about speed. You can connect your help desk (like Zendesk or Freshdesk), link your knowledge sources, and connect to Slack with just a few clicks. You don’t have to book a demo or bring in a developer to get started. You can have a working AI agent ready to go in less time than it takes to brew a pot of coffee.

A flowchart outlining the quick, self-serve implementation of eesel AI, an alternative to the Slack AI integration with Writer.::A flowchart outlining the quick, self-serve implementation of eesel AI, from connecting data to going live.

Test it out with powerful simulations

This is a really important difference. eesel AI includes a simulation mode that lets you test your AI agent on thousands of your past support tickets. You can see exactly how it would have answered, get solid predictions on how many tickets it can resolve, and tweak its behavior before it ever talks to a real user. This takes all the guesswork and risk out of the equation.

The eesel AI simulation dashboard shows how the AI would have responded to past support tickets, demonstrating the Slack AI integration with Writer alternative.::The eesel AI simulation dashboard showing how AI uses past product knowledge to predict future support automation rates.

Total control and clear pricing

Writer’s per-user pricing can be a headache for support teams where the number of agents changes. eesel AI has straightforward, interaction-based plans with no hidden fees per resolution. You pay a flat rate for a set number of AI interactions, which makes your costs easy to predict and manage as you grow.

eesel AI also gives you fine-tuned control over your support workflows. You can decide exactly which types of tickets the AI should handle and what it’s allowed to do, from tagging and escalating to closing tickets on its own.

The eesel AI interface showing customization rules, a key feature of this Slack AI integration with Writer alternative.::The eesel AI interface showing customization rules, which is a key feature of this Slack AI integration with Writer alternative.

Feature	Slack AI integration with Writer	eesel AI for Slack
Best For	Custom content & general AI apps	Support & IT automation
Setup Time	Days to weeks (requires app building)	Minutes (self-serve)
Pricing Model	Per-user, per-month	Flat, interaction-based
Simulation Mode	Not available	Yes, on historical tickets
Key Function	Building custom generative AI agents	Automating ticket resolution & workflows

Is the Slack AI integration with Writer the right AI for your Slack workspace?

So, which one should you choose? The Slack AI integration with Writer is an impressive and highly customizable platform for companies that have the time and technical resources to build their own AI applications. If your goal is to create specialized content generators or internal research assistants from the ground up, it’s a strong choice.

However, for customer service and IT teams who need to solve problems right now, its complexity, per-user pricing, and lack of ready-made support features can be major hurdles.

For those teams, eesel AI is the more practical option. It’s a faster, safer, and more affordable way to use AI in Slack to resolve tickets, answer questions, and free up your team to focus on more important work.

Get started with AI in Slack today

Ready to see how simple support automation in Slack can be? Start your free trial with eesel AI and you can launch your first AI agent in under 5 minutes.