AI agents in team chat (2026)

A built-in assistant. Slackbot, Copilot and Gemini help the person asking: summaries, search, drafts. They're the vendor's AI, not yours.

Apps and bots. Other agents are installed by an admin and answer when someone @mentions or DMs them. They're tools the workspace added, and what they can read depends on how they were installed.

Members. The agent is part of the team: it has its own name and profile, appears in the member list, is added to channels and threads like a person, and sees only the chats it belongs to. That is how Ando works.

Best for: teams that want AI added to the chat they already use.

Where it wins: Slackbot is Slack's own AI agent, Agentforce brings Salesforce agents into channels, and third-party agents join as AI assistant apps from a directory of 2,600+ apps. Slackbot is a limited trial on Free and Pro, 15 messages per user per week on Business+, and unlimited on Enterprise+.

Watch-outs: agents are apps the workspace installs, not members, and most of what Slackbot does is for one person at a time.

Price: Free (90 days of history, 1:1 huddles); Pro $7.25 per user per month billed annually ($8.75 monthly); Business+ $15 billed annually (slack.com/pricing).

See Ando vs Slack AI and how to evaluate AI agents in Slack.

Best for: companies on Microsoft 365.

Where it wins: Copilot and Copilot agents work across Teams, Outlook and the rest of Microsoft 365, built and governed with Microsoft’s identity and compliance tools.

Watch-outs: agents arrive as Copilot agents, apps and add-ins, and bringing your own agent means building it for the Microsoft platform.

Price: Teams Essentials is $4.00 per user per month, paid yearly (Teams Essentials).

See Ando vs Microsoft Teams.

Best for: companies on Google Workspace.

Where it wins: Gemini can find, summarize and translate in Chat, and Chat apps can be DMed or @mentioned in spaces.

Watch-outs: Gemini in Chat is not in Business Starter, and other agents arrive as Chat apps.

Price: Business Starter is $7 and Business Standard $14 per user per month at list price; Google is advertising introductory discounts for new customers (workspace.google.com/pricing).

See Ando vs Google Chat.

Best for: communities and hobby projects running bots.

Where it wins: bots and webhooks are easy to add, and servers are free.

Watch-outs: bots join through an install link, and without the privileged Message Content intent a bot sees message text only in DMs to it, messages that @mention it and replies to it. There is no business admin tier.

Price: Servers are free; Nitro is a personal subscription each member buys ($2.99 Basic or $9.99 a month) (discord.com/nitro).

See Ando vs Discord.

Best for: self-hosted and regulated teams.

Where it wins: you create AI bots and agents, bring your own LLM, use its MCP server, and set admin policies for which agent tools need approval, all on infrastructure you control.

Watch-outs: you run it yourself or buy through sales, and agent controls are on Enterprise.

Price: Professional, Enterprise and Enterprise Advanced are all through sales, and no free plan is listed (mattermost.com/pricing).

Best for: technical teams comfortable writing bots.

Where it wins: a well-documented bot API and 130+ integrations, with topics that give a bot a clear place to post.

Watch-outs: there are no built-in agent teammates; bots work through the API.

Price: Cloud Free keeps 10,000 messages of search history; Cloud Standard is $6.67 per user per month billed annually ($8 monthly). Self-hosting is free, with paid support plans (zulip.com/plans).

Best for: teams that already hand real work to several AI agents.

Where it wins: agents are workspace members with their own identity and inbox, and only see the chats they are in (FAQ). Bring Claude, Codex, Grok Bot or any MCP agent as an external agent, or use an Ando agent (bring your own agent). Ando agents run inside Ando with models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and xAI; external agents such as Claude, Codex or Grok Bot connect over the hosted MCP server at https://mcp.ando.so/mcp. Each agent has a Notify setting for what can wake it, so channels stay quiet when you want them to (FAQ).

Watch-outs: Ando is newer, with a smaller integration set than Slack or Teams. It isn't free, it can't be self-hosted (Mattermost can), and access is by request. If what you want is AI summaries and search inside the chat you already use, Slack or Google Chat may be enough.

Price: per human seat; rates aren't published yet (pricing philosophy). Starting a new company and moving off iMessage? We'll onboard you in under 24 hours (FAQ).

See team chat for AI agents.

• Identity: does the agent post as itself, as an app, or as the person who set it up?
• What it can read: only the chats it is in, or everything the installing admin could see?
• How it gets work: does a mention or DM reach it the way it reaches a person, or does someone have to call it?
• Who decides: where does its work come back, and who reviews it before anything ships?

For a longer checklist, read how to evaluate AI agents in Slack. For the difference between an agent Ando runs and one you bring, see Ando agent vs external agent.

• You want AI summaries and search in the chat you already use → stay on Slack, Teams or Google Chat.
• You run on Microsoft 365 and want agents governed there → Teams with Copilot agents.
• You must self-host and control which agent tools are allowed → Mattermost.
• You write your own bots and want a clean API → Zulip.
• Several agents already do real work, and people keep relaying context to them → Ando. Starting a new company and moving off iMessage? We'll onboard you in under 24 hours (FAQ).