AI agents and notifications
AI agents are the right tool when built-in Slack and Teams notifications are not enough: you need multiple steps, queries across your workspace, LLM summarization or classification, or several outputs from one run (for example Slack plus a task plus an email, with logic in between).
Agents are configurable automations—a directed graph of steps with triggers that decide when a new run starts. You can build simple agents (a few steps) or complex ones (branching, loops, subflows) using the agent builder in the product or JSON with the same schema the runner understands.
How agents differ from Admin notifications
| Admin → Notifications (built-in) | AI agents | |
|---|---|---|
| Authoring | UI wizards for events, accounts, channels, templates | Canvas / JSON flow with CALL, AGENT, CONDITION, LOOP, and more |
| Best for | “When activity or signal X fires for these accounts, post to Slack/Teams” | Custom logic, data pulls, LLM steps, multi-channel outcomes |
| Delivery | Slack and Teams (built-in templates) | Functions you attach—commonly slack.send_message, Teams integrations via configured connections, tasks.create, email.send, CRM, datasets, semantic.query, and others (functions reference) |
Use built-in notifications for broad, low-lift coverage; use agents when a specific playbook should run end to end.
Notifying from an agent
Agents do not use the same “notification configuration” object as Admin → Notifications. Instead, you add steps that call platform functions—for example a CALL to slack.send_message after a semantic.query or an AGENT step that decides whether to notify. Triggers can be manual, scheduled, interval, activity, signal, conversation, needle mover, query, and more (triggers).
Where to learn more
- AI Agents overview — mental model and when to use agents
- Getting started with agents
- Triggers — when runs start
- Operations (step types) —
CALL,AGENT, control flow - Functions reference — Slack, email, tasks, CRM, and the full catalog
Related
- Notifications overview — built-in Slack and Teams
- Slack notifications
- Microsoft Teams notifications