Look out, Skype — you can now make video calls using Slack messaging service

By Lulu Chang December 13, 2016

1174693 autosave v1 slack — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Watch out, Skype. Your identity may be being stolen.

In addition to sharing the same first letter, number of letters, and overall function, Skype and Slack now have something else in common, too — the ability to make video calls. On Tuesday, the popular seven-year-old messaging service announced its latest feature, one that has been in high demand for quite some time: one-to-one and group video calling.

“Since we added voice calling to Slack earlier this year, teams have used the phone icon to make calls across the office and around the world,” Slack noted in a blog post announcement. But now, that phone icon can be used to do even more. “Just click the phone icon to start a call — like you’ve been doing already — and then use the new camera button within your window to enable video,” the team said.

While it has always been easy to send instant messages to one or multiple people via Slack, the platform has made it increasingly simple to communicate via other mediums as well, all within the app. Users don’t have to download or even open a new app, dial into a meeting, or distribute links to ensure everyone is in the same virtual meeting — rather, the company promises, “Anyone on your Slack team can call another person directly.” Moreover, if your business pays for Slack, you’ll be able to host some pretty large group video calls — up to 15 people, to be exact.

Although Slack is adding more functionality, it’s not giving up its cheeky attitude. For example, even while in a video call, you can use the emoji response feature, which means you can send a raised hand sign to ask a question, a thumbs up emoji to voice your agreement or any of the other icons you’ve grown to know and love from Slack.

Even if not everyone in your video conference has Slack, you can still use the video-calling feature. Third-party services like Google Hangouts and Zoom are also compatible with the platform, and furthermore, “you can even customize your call settings to automatically default to the call service of your choice,” Slack said.

So if you need a way to connect your international team on one important call, consider trying out Slack and its newest addition to the toolkit.

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Showing up to a videoconference as your digital avatar can be quite fun. Apple lets you do just that with Memojis during FaceTime. If you want something more ambitious on a different platform, Avatarify will turn into Albert Einstien or Mona Lisa for Zoom calls. But what if you could bring an AI conversation to life? Say, by talking to ChatGPT as if OpenAI’s AI was a CGI person talking to you on a video call?
Well, that’s now possible. Call Annie is an app that turns ChatGPT into Annie, a talking female avatar that doesn’t look like a glitchy visual mess. Developed by Animato.Ai, the app is currently exclusive to iOS 16, but you can also use it on macOS 13 machines with an M-series processor inside.

A ChatGPT-powered video call in action
https://twitter.com/frantzfries/status/1651316031762071553?s=20
Another limitation is that you need at least the iPhone 12 or a later model to start a video call with Annie because the real-time conversion of linguistic prompts into visual cues draws power from Apple’s Neural Engine.
The app’s makers claim that talking to Annie “face-to-face in real time time feels more natural and faster than typing and reading text.” So far, the sample videos we have seen on social media, like the one above, show a fairly convincing video call interface.
Right now, Annie appears to be pretty good at holding a fluent conversation, even though the voice sounds robotic, and the phrase pausing could also use some work. The answers, however, are typical of the answers you would get while texting back-and-forth with ChatGPT. And given enough time and improved voice training, Call Annie interactions can become a lot more natural-sounding.
It all brings back memories of the sci-fi flick Her, in which Joaquin Phoenix’s character falls in love with one such AI. One user asked on Reddit whether Annie can have a “memory” system that will turn it into a smarter “friend,” to which the app developers replied with “soon.”
https://twitter.com/jakedahn/status/1651285054591750144
This is only the beginning for Annie
Users who have tried the app note that it occasionally flubs the pronunciation of words, but once corrected, it also learns right away. One user described this experience as “scary stuff.”Another issue it has is with pronouncing words in languages other than English, something that the developers are trying to fix.
Thanks to its ChatGPT smarts, the app’s developers say it can help you with everything from learning and web searches to serving as a tour guide or even a virtual companion. We don’t know if it’s as smart as other virtual partner apps like Replika, but considering the fact that Annie is based on ChatGPT (and its vast data training model), you can have a significantly deeper and fact-driven conversation with Annie.
Animato’s App Store description notes that the AI keeps all conversations “confidential” but hasn’t specified what kind of security measures have been put in place and whether it uses the user conversations for training and refining Annie’s systems.