Slack has added new 'co-working' tools to its Huddles service which includes video and multi-person screen sharing functions.
The new capabilities revealed at Slack Frontiers on Wednesday are part of the comms platform's "digital HQ" strategy which aims to make Slack a virtual replacement for the office.
Slack Huddles isn't meant to replace video conferencing services like Zoom or Google Hangouts as it caters more toward quick sessions or off-the-cuff meetings of around 10 minutes or so. Specifically, Slack Huddles was developed to re-create the informal discussions colleagues have in offices.
Pushing that further, users will soon be able to see each other as Huddles will have 'lightweight' video which will be accessible with just one click. This will include multi-person screen sharing and capabilities to react to others with drawings and emojis and share documents, links and comments in a thread. What's more, the thread will automatically be saved to the channel so it can be accessed later on.
All Huddles will start as audio-only by default, in a small, minimised screen. One click will launch the video and users can also select blurred or stylised backgrounds.
The screen-sharing features will differ from traditional models as each user on the call can share their screen, simultaneously. This may sound slightly confusing, but as a use case, Slack describes a design session where different participants can pull up their own images at the same time for the rest of the call to view. These can then be worked upon with a live cursor which can be used to emphasise and highlight certain bits of a shared screen, so if something on a design needs to be tweaked, users can draw on the part they want to fix.
All new coworking features will be available to Slack customers - regardless of subscription level - in the autumn and will be available to use with Slack Connect.
