Why Slack is the right interface for AI-powered ops
You could build a dashboard. You could build an app. Or you could put the AI where your team already works. Here's why the latter wins every time.
When we were designing how operators would interact with Merit, we had three options: a dedicated web app, a dashboard, or Slack. We spent about two weeks thinking through each one before the answer became obvious.
The adoption problem with new interfaces
New tools die in the browser bookmark folder. Even tools that people genuinely want to use get forgotten when they're not in the path of daily work. The adoption curve for a new web app is brutal — onboard, use it three times, stop opening it, cancel it in six months.
The best interface is the one people actually use. For most ops teams, that's Slack.
Collaboration is built in
> THE MERIT BRIEF
Want this kind of thing in your inbox once a week?
// Written personally by Brian
When Merit responds with a campaign analysis in Slack, the whole team sees it. The media buyer, the CMO, the founder — everyone's in the same channel, seeing the same data, reacting in the same thread.
Approvals happen where decisions happen
Merit never takes action without showing you the plan first. That approval interaction happens in Slack — where you and your team are already making decisions. You see the proposed action, thumbs-up or thumbs-down, and it executes.
The interface scales with the team
- →New team members onboard by reading the channel history — they see what questions get asked and what answers come back.
- →Multiple team members can request different analyses in the same session.
- →Leadership can follow along in real time rather than waiting for a formatted email.
- →The audit trail of decisions lives in Slack history permanently.
Why not a dashboard?
Dashboards are excellent for monitoring. They're poor for operations. A dashboard tells you what happened. It doesn't help you decide what to do about it, and it doesn't run the action after you decide.
> THE MERIT BRIEF
What operators are actually installing this week.
One short email a week. Tool stack changes. Workflows operators just installed. Patterns from inside Merit's customer base. No theory, no hype, nothing you have to “implement later.”
// Written personally by Brian · One click to unsubscribe
Brian MacDonald
Brian MacDonald is the founder of Merit, the AI coworker for marketing teams. Previously ran SetupClaw.tech, an AI deployment service for SMBs. Read more about Brian and the mission.
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