Keep going
You built a real workflow for catching up on Slack channels using AI. Let's look at what you achieved and where to go next.
What you built
- Connected an AI assistant to a live service (Slack) — using real credentials
- Fetched real messages from a real Slack channel
- Produced structured summaries in multiple formats
- Used follow-up questions to find specific information
- Experienced voice-first AI interaction (Path B)
- All for free, in under 45 minutes
What you learned
The skill that matters most isn't coding — it's knowing how to connect tools and ask the right questions. You learned to link an AI assistant to a real service, fetch live data, and turn it into something useful — whether by speaking or typing. That is a transferable skill you can use in any job.
- How AI tools connect to external services (connectors and MCP)
- How to write prompts that produce useful, structured output
- How to customise summary formats for different audiences
- How to ask follow-up questions to explore data without reading it yourself
- How to work with AI as a productivity tool — not just a chatbot
- How voice input can make AI workflows faster and more natural (Path B)
Ideas to try
Fetch summaries from several channels and compare what is happening across your workspace.
Create a weekly summary and share it with your team. Format it as a newsletter you could paste into an email.
If you used Path B (Gemini CLI), you can add the groups:history and groups:read scopes to your Slack App to access private channels you are a member of. Go to your app settings at api.slack.com/apps to add these scopes.
Combine this tutorial with the Create Professional PDFs tutorial — summarise a channel, then use Gemini CLI + Typst to create a beautifully formatted PDF report.
Prompt: compare multiple channels
Summarise these three Slack channels from the last week:
- #general
- #announcements
- #project-updates
For each channel, give me 3-5 bullet points.
Then tell me: what are the common themes across all three channels?
Prompt: weekly digest email
Create a weekly digest for #channel-name covering the last 7 days.
Format it as a short newsletter with:
- A one-sentence overview at the top
- Key updates (bullet points)
- Action items
- Links shared
Make it professional enough to paste into an email to my team.
Prompt: find unanswered questions
Read the recent messages in #channel-name and find any questions
that were asked but never answered.
List each unanswered question with:
- Who asked it
- When they asked it
- The full question
This will help me make sure nothing falls through the cracks.
Level up: CLI skills and the path to Claude Code
If you used the CLI path, you now have hands-on experience with terminal-based AI, MCP connections, and voice-first workflows. These skills transfer directly to Claude Code — the professional CLI tool used in the Vibe Coding tutorial.
If you used Claude Desktop, you have seen how Anthropic builds AI tools. Claude Code is the terminal version of the same technology — faster, more powerful, and the tool of choice for professional developers. Consider trying the CLI path of this tutorial to build your terminal skills before moving to Vibe Coding.
The same skills, a more powerful tool. Speaking to an AI in the terminal, approving tool calls, working with MCP servers — you learned all of this with Gemini CLI. Claude Code uses the exact same workflow, but can also write code, edit files, and manage entire projects.
Reflect
What surprised you about connecting AI to Slack?
Many people are surprised how straightforward it is to connect AI to services they use every day. The technical barrier is much lower than most expect — especially with connectors (Path A) that require no setup at all, or voice commands (Path B) that make the experience feel like talking to a colleague.
How could this workflow help your work or job search?
Think about: catching up after time off, preparing for meetings by summarising relevant channels, creating weekly reports for your manager, or staying on top of community discussions in job-search groups. The ability to quickly extract information from conversations is valuable in any role. With voice input, you can get these summaries even while multitasking.
How does voice change the way you interact with AI?
Speaking to AI feels different from typing. It is faster, more natural, and lowers the barrier to asking for help. Many people find they ask more follow-up questions when they can just speak — which means they get more value from the same tool. Think about where else in your workflow voice-first AI could save time.
What other information would you like AI to summarise?
The same approach works for emails, meeting transcripts, documents, news articles, and more. Once you know how to write effective prompts, you can apply this skill to any text-heavy task.
Resources
| Resource | Description | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Gemini CLI | Google's AI assistant for the terminal | github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli |
| Claude Code | Professional AI CLI tool (your next step) | docs.anthropic.com |
| Claude Desktop | Download Anthropic's AI assistant | claude.ai/download |
| Wispr Flow | Voice input for any application | wisprflow.ai |
| Slack API docs | Official Slack API documentation | api.slack.com |
| Slack MCP server | The MCP server used in Path B | npmjs.com/package/@modelcontextprotocol/server-slack |
| Manage your Slack apps | Create and manage Slack Apps | api.slack.com/apps |
Thank you for completing this tutorial! You went from zero to summarising real Slack conversations with AI — whether by speaking or typing. The ability to connect tools, fetch data, and extract meaning from it is valuable in any role — take this skill with you.