How To Build an AI Chat Bot on Slack

Step by step guide on how to launch an AI chat bot on Slack. Takes no more than 10 minutes and no coding is required!

☝️ is what it’s going to look like once we’re finished.

In this guide, we’re going to follow 4 simple steps to create a smart conversational AI that anyone can talk to in your Slack workspace:

1. Create your Slack app
2. Configure your Slack app
3. Create a Quickchat.ai account
4. Integrate your Slack bot with Quickchat.ai

1. Create your Slack app

The first thing you need to do is to create a Slack app for your AI chat bot. Head over to api.slack.com/apps, create new app and follow the steps:

2. Configure your Slack app

Slack recently released a neat way of configuring your entire app in one go. You do it through the so called manifest file which contains all of your app’s configuration.

We prepared a manifest file that you can simply copy & paste without worrying about the details. If you’re interested, the important lines have been highlighted below: - make sure your bot’s messages tab has been enabled - set permission scope for bot so it can read and write chat messages - set the appropriate bot events to be handled by our Quickchat server

display_information:
  name: Talk to AI
  description: Talk to me about Quickchat!
features:
  app_home:
    home_tab_enabled: false
    messages_tab_enabled: true
    messages_tab_read_only_enabled: false
  bot_user:
    display_name: Talk to AI
    always_online: true
oauth_config:
  scopes:
    bot:
      - im:history
      - im:write
      - chat:write
settings:
  event_subscriptions:
    request_url: https://slack.quickchat.ai/chat/
    bot_events:
      - message.im
      - app_home_opened
  org_deploy_enabled: false
  socket_mode_enabled: false
  token_rotation_enabled: false

Note: If you would also like to be able to @mention the bot in other channels and receive responses in threads, expand the manifest file as follows:

display_information:
  name: Talk to AI
  description: Talk to me about Quickchat!
features:
  app_home:
    home_tab_enabled: false
    messages_tab_enabled: true
    messages_tab_read_only_enabled: false
  bot_user:
    display_name: Talk to AI
    always_online: true
oauth_config:
  scopes:
    bot:
      - im:history
      - im:write
      - chat:write
      - app_mentions:read
      - channels:history
      - groups:history
settings:
  event_subscriptions:
    request_url: https://slack.quickchat.ai/chat/
    bot_events:
      - message.im
      - app_home_opened
      - app_mention
      - message.groups
      - message.channels
  org_deploy_enabled: false
  socket_mode_enabled: false
  token_rotation_enabled: false

Before you can set your manifest, you will be required to verify the URL by simply clicking on the link:

That’s it! Your bot Slack app has been configured. If you’d like to edit your bot’s look & feel, head over to Basic information under Settings:

3. Create a Quickchat.ai account

Quickchat.ai allows you to create your own AI Assistant that has great conversational skills and general world knowledge by default, out of the box.

If you want to, you can give your AI specific knowledge about your company, project, product or virtually anything else. If you want to learn how to do it, watch our 10-minute video guide on YouTube.

But even without any specific knowledge the Quickchat engine makes a great conversation partner so we’re going to go with that for now. Head over to quickchat.ai and create your account:

Subscribe for the 2-week trial for just $14.

4. Integrate your Slack bot with Quickchat.ai

In the Quickchat dashboard, go to Integrations and find the Slack integration section:

You will find the following in your Slack app’s settings: - App ID: Settings => Basic Information => App Credentials - Signing Secret: Settings => Basic Information => App Credentials - Bot User OAuth Token: Features => OAuth & Permissions => OAuth Tokens for Your Workspace 👉 You will first be required to install the bot to your Workspace:

As a final step you may set welcome messages to be sent by the bot at the beginning of their conversation on Slack:

And that’s it! 🎉 Your AI chat bot is ready to be tested on Slack: