Slack review

Slack has fundamentally shifted its identity from a 'messaging app' to a 'Work OS' with the 2025 release of **Lists** and **Canvas**. Lists allows teams to manage project trackers, bug queues, and marketing calendars directly within channel interfaces, effectively killing the need for Trello for lighter workflows. Meanwhile, the new **AI-Powered Search** doesn't just scan chat logs; it indexes connected Google Drive and Salesforce nodes, acting as a unified intelligence layer for the entire organization.

However, this power comes at a literal cost. The 20% price hike on the **Business+** plan (now ~$15/user) has forced smaller teams to reconsider. The 'Notification Fatigue' factor has also worsened; with Lists and Canvas now firing alerts alongside messages, the signal-to-noise ratio requires aggressive tuning. Our telemetry also indicates a 15% spike in RAM usage on the desktop client due to the new local AI models.

For distributed teams, Slack remains the gold standard. The latency on **Huddles** (audio/video) is still perceptibly lower than Microsoft Teams, and the developer ecosystem (GitHub, Sentry, Datadog integrations) is unmatched. If you are a tech-forward organization, the premium is worth it. For simpler operations, the feature density might now be overkill.