Slack launches Huddles, Discord-like audio calls you can hop in and out of
Slack is launching its new Huddles feature today, lightweight audio calls that you and your colleagues can jump in and out of while working. Born out of the pandemic, Slack Huddles are designed to replace those informal conversations you used to have with colleagues across desks. If you’ve ever used Discord, Slack Huddles is very similar, offering the ability to join or leave a persistent call freely at all hours.
Slack is focusing on audio with Huddles rather than video, but there will be a screen-sharing feature to make it easy for teams of people to hold spontaneous meetings that may have happened huddled around a monitor in the pre-pandemic days.
“It allows for two- or three-minute conversations,” explains Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield in an interview with The Verge. “If you have to schedule a call… you talk for the full 30 minutes instead of the two or three minutes you needed right in that moment.”
That time-saving and spontaneity is a key part of Slack Huddles. These audio calls can be created in any channel or DM, including shared communications across companies. The audio experience is designed to mimic people walking by your desk, so there’s no need to send people invites, links, or dial-in numbers — anyone in a channel or a DM group can join freely. Powered by Slack’s partnership with Amazon, Huddles also includes impressively fast and accurate live captioning through AWS — something I was able to test during my conversation with Butterfield.
