20 ways WeMachines chat beats Slack
Slack beats us in five ways: private channels, group DMs, keyword alerts, scheduled sending and a notification schedule. If your team can't work without those, check them first.
That's where it ends. Here are twenty things WeMachines chat does that Slack doesn't, from DMs nobody else can read to emoji that actually move.
Private, for real
Slack encrypts your messages, but by default it holds the keys, and your DMs can leave in an export. In WeMachines a DM is sealed on your device, and only the two of you can open it.
1DMs only the two of you can read
Whispers, our DMs, are end-to-end encrypted, always. Each one is sealed on the sender's device to the two people's keys, so not your team, not your machines and not us can open it. The files and pictures in it are sealed too.
Slack: no end-to-end encryption, and on Business+ and Enterprise an owner can apply to export DMs.
2A safety code you can compare
Press Safety code at the top of a whisper and you both see the same thirty digits. Compare them on a call or in person: if they match, nobody else can read along. A recovery key you save once opens your whispers on any new device.
3Machines never see your DMs
Machines read the team's channels, never a whisper. They can't summarise one, quote one or answer a question about one, and whispers are left out of a team export.
4Notifications that keep DMs sealed
A push notification or a missed-mentions email says "Encrypted message", never your words. Only the app on your own device shows what was said.
5Your chat isn't training material
Your team's messages aren't used to train models. One switch goes further and keeps every machine on the models marked ZDR, for zero data retention, so the provider stores nothing.
Slack: its privacy principles say its systems analyze messages, content and files to build its models, unless an owner emails Slack to opt out.
Know who's read it
Slack never tells you whether anyone read your message. WeMachines does, quietly, in the corner of the message.
6Read receipts in every room
Each teammate's face sits on the last message they've read, and moves down as they catch up. Press it to see who has read that far. A read only counts while WeMachines is in front of you, so a tab left open in the background never fakes one.
Slack: no read receipts, in channels or in DMs.
7Docs that show who's read them
A strip on every doc shows who is reading it now, who has read it and when, and who on the team hasn't opened it yet. A decision never rests on a guess.
8Machines show what they're doing
A machine puts 👀 on the message it's answering. While it works, the room says what it's doing right now, and research sources tick off one by one as they come back.
Small things that feel great
The details you touch a hundred times a day.
9Emoji that move
Send an emoji on its own and it plays big, at 60 frames a second. Reactions, the picker and calls move too. And a voice memo plays right in the chat, with a waveform to scrub and 2x for the long ones.
10Undo instead of "Are you sure?"
Delete a message and the button becomes its own Undo. Copy turns into a tick. A finished task folds away. No dialogs in your way, and a slip is one click to take back.
Slack: it asks you to confirm, and a deleted message can't be brought back.
11Figma, live, in the chat
Paste a Figma link and the design opens full screen inside WeMachines, to pan, zoom or play the prototype. YouTube, Loom and TikTok play in the message, and Spotify gets a player.
12Polls with a face on every vote
Type /poll and add up to ten options. Votes land live with each voter's face on their pick, and a machine can put a question to the team for you.
Slack: polls are an app you install.
13Live chips for tasks and docs
Type # and pick a task, doc or app. The chip shows its current title, and for a task its priority and who's on it, so a link never goes stale in the scrollback.
14Power reactions
In a channel you share with another company, the ⚡ reaction sends them 100 credits as a thank-you. It lands with a burst, and both sides see a line saying so.
Quieter by design
Fewer pings, and every one of them worth it.
15One way to ping the whole room
@here reaches everyone in the channel, and it's the only blast there is. With no @channel and no @everyone, the whole team gets pinged only when it truly has to see something.
Slack: @here, @channel and @everyone.
16No messages from strangers
Another company reaches your team only through a shared channel, opened with a single-use link someone on your team sent. Its notifications stay off until you turn them on.
17Machines that know when to be quiet
A machine answers whoever asked and notifies only them. Set to join in, it speaks up at most once an hour in a room, and a routine with nothing to report says nothing. In early access, a machine that reaches out on its own sends a message or two a day at most, and never at night.
Machines in the room
Slack's AI answers questions and recaps what was said. WeMachines puts teammates in the room that do the work.
18A machine in every room
Mention a machine in any channel, or just call it by name. Each one has its own room the whole team can read, and it answers right where it was asked.
19Talk to a machine out loud
Press the voice key in the message box, or ⌘O, and the box turns into a call with the room's machine. It creates tasks, moves a deadline or books a meeting on your connected calendar while you talk, and nobody else hears it.
20A conflict check under the message
When a message quietly contradicts a task or a doc, a card under it says what it disagrees with. The message posts either way, and most messages get nothing.
Side by side
| WeMachines | Slack | |
|---|---|---|
| DMs | End-to-end encrypted, with a safety code | Encrypted in transit and at rest, with keys Slack holds |
| Exports | DMs are left out | Owners can apply to export DMs on Business+ and Enterprise |
| Your messages and models | Never used to train models | Analyzed for Slack's models unless an owner opts out by email |
| Read receipts | In every room, and on every doc | None |
| Pinging the whole room | @here, and nothing louder | @here, @channel and @everyone |
| Deleting a message | One click, with Undo | A confirmation, then it's gone |
| Polls | Built in | An app from the directory |
| AI in the chat | Machines that do the work in the room | Slackbot, recaps and summaries |
Bring your team over
Your team talks all day. It should be private, and it should be a pleasure. Your first month is free, with up to 5,000 credits. Get access, move one channel over and see how a week feels.
Comparing more than the chat? Read WeMachines vs Slack, or how we run our own company on it.
