Slack AI vs Zoom AI Companion: pricing, features and which to choose

Slack AI is the AI layer inside Slack, made by Slack, which Salesforce acquired on July 21, 2021. Slack launched Slack AI on February 14, 2024, initially with AI search, channel recaps, and thread summaries. It now works across conversations, files, huddles, canvases, and Workflow Builder, adding daily recaps, file summaries, translations, AI writing assistance, workflow generation, and Slackbot. The product uses off-the-shelf models and retrieval rather than one publicly identified foundation model. Slack says customer data is not used to train large language models, and responses respect each user’s existing permissions. Slack’s pricing page lists a free plan with 90 days of history, up to 10 apps, and basic AI, while Pro starts at $8.75 per user monthly, Business+ at $18, and Enterprise+ is custom. Salesforce owns the parent company, not Slack AI as a separate acquisition.

Slack AI works inside the places teams already use: search, channels, threads, huddles, canvases, and Workflow Builder. A typical workflow starts with a natural-language question about messages or shared files, followed by an answer grounded in content the requester can access. Users can summarize a thread or channel, capture huddle transcripts and action items, review daily recaps, summarize files, translate messages, or ask Slackbot about conversations, files, and projects. Slack AI can also generate workflows from a prompt and add AI steps, such as recurring channel summaries. Its app directory lists more than 2,600 integrations, while enterprise search extends queries across connected apps and systems. Slack says outputs remain permission-scoped, so the assistant should not expose content unavailable to the requesting user.

Slack AI’s main limitation is scope: it is strongest inside Slack, where permission-scoped search, summaries, recaps, file summaries, translations, Slackbot, and Workflow Builder draw on conversations and shared files. Microsoft 365 Copilot reaches across Teams and Microsoft 365 apps, while Google Gemini for Workspace is more deeply tied to Gmail, Docs, and Meet. ChatGPT Enterprise is broader as a general assistant, rather than a communication archive with native channels and huddles. Slack says it uses off-the-shelf models, does not train them on customer data, and keeps prompts and outputs from providers, but it does not identify one exclusive foundation model. Its discontinued standalone AI add-on and tier-based feature split also complicate purchasing. Slack AI suits teams already conducting substantial, searchable work in Slack, especially those that value permission-aware retrieval over a general-purpose chatbot.

Zoom AI Companion is Zoom’s integrated AI assistant, announced on September 5, 2023, for meeting and workplace tasks. Its initial tools included meeting summaries, in-meeting questions, recording highlights, Team Chat assistance, Whiteboard ideation, and Mail drafting. Zoom uses a federated model strategy combining its own models with third-party systems from Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic, while saying customer communications are not used to train those models. The product’s identity changed on June 24, 2026: the AI Companion name was retired, its core functions were folded into Zoom Workplace under functional labels, and ZoomMate became the newer agentic product built on Custom AI Companion. ZoomMate starts at $20 per user monthly, or $16.67 annually, with 2,200 credits per user each month. The original AI Companion therefore remains relevant as a feature history, not a current standalone offer.

Zoom AI Companion’s core value is turning meetings and conversations into follow-up work inside Zoom Workplace. During a meeting, it can answer in-meeting questions, transcribe discussion, produce a summary and capture notes through My Notes, including for supported third-party meetings and in-person conversations. Afterward, users can ask questions across Zoom content, draft messages or documents, create custom meeting-summary formats, and send results to connected services such as Salesforce, Jira, Google Drive and OneDrive. A practical workflow is straightforward: enable My Notes before a call, review the generated decisions and action items, then use ZoomMate to draft a status update, schedule follow-ups, update a record or create a deliverable. ZoomMate also supports custom agents, scheduled workflows and agentic search. The older AI Companion name was retired, but these functions remain under their specific feature names inside Zoom Workplace.

Zoom AI Companion was rebranded on June 24, 2026, with its former features folded into functional labels inside Zoom Workplace, while ZoomMate became the paid agentic successor. That creates a naming problem for buyers comparing it with Microsoft 365 Copilot, Google Workspace Gemini, and Slack AI, each of which remains a clearer product identity. ZoomMate Basic is limited to three hosted meeting summaries, three My Notes uses, 20 AI queries, 10 workflow runs, and 10 indexed files, while the paid plan costs $20 per user monthly or $16.67 annually and includes 2,200 credits. Zoom also says customer communications are not used to train its models, though connected content is processed to provide features. ZoomMate is best suited to Zoom Workplace teams that want meeting context turned into follow-up tasks, documents, and workflows without changing collaboration platforms.