--- title: Ando wants to take on Slack with a team messaging app... description: Ando, a startup founded by Sara Du, has come out of stealth with a team messaging app designed to let AI agents participate as full team members alongside... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/ando-wants-to-take-on-slack-with-a-team-messaging-app-that-lets-humans-and-agents-work-together-kioasvlok twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Ando wants to take on Slack with a team messaging app that lets humans and agents work together | daily.dev og:description: Ando, a startup founded by Sara Du, has come out of stealth with a team messaging app designed to let AI agents participate as full team members alongside... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/ando-wants-to-take-on-slack-with-a-team-messaging-app-that-lets-humans-and-agents-work-together-kioasvlok og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/KIOasVlok.png og:image:alt: Ando wants to take on Slack with a team messaging app that lets humans and agents work together og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Ando wants to take on Slack with a team messaging app that lets humans and agents work together **[TechCrunch](https://daily.dev/sources/tc)** · 4 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Ando, a startup founded by Sara Du, has come out of stealth with a team messaging app designed to let AI agents participate as full team members alongside humans, rather than as bolt-on apps. Agents get their own identities and inboxes, can join channels, hold DMs, join calls, and proactively notify humans without needing to be tagged first. The company raised $20 million in pre-seed and seed funding from Accel, Index Ventures, and Emergence, and positions itself as a challenger to Slack and Microsoft Teams, both of which have added their own AI agent integrations. Ando is currently used by small teams in software, real estate, and finance across 15 countries, and the new funding will go toward hiring and covering token costs. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is Ando and how does it differ from Slack for using AI agents at work? Ando is a team messaging platform built from the ground up so AI agents and humans communicate as equal participants rather than agents being installed as bolt-on apps. Agents get their own identities and inboxes, can join channels, DMs, and calls, and can proactively message humans without waiting for a tag or approval. Founded by Sara Du, it raised $20 million in pre-seed and seed funding from Accel, Index Ventures, and Emergence. _Teams weighing agent-native messaging tools against Slack can track this space on daily.dev._ ### What other startups are building team chat apps for humans and AI agents to compete with Slack? Jack Dorsey's Buzz is another group chat platform combining people and AI agents, though it is more targeted at developers, and it launched a few months before Ando's public debut. Meanwhile, incumbents Slack and Microsoft have added their own agent integrations, with Slack turning its native bot into an AI agent and Microsoft integrating Copilot into Teams. _Developers comparing emerging agent-native chat tools can follow the space on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [All the AI agents that can live in your text messages](https://daily.dev/posts/all-the-ai-agents-that-can-live-in-your-text-messages-0iqklqhul) · TechCrunch · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Slack is turning Slackbot into an AI assistant](https://daily.dev/posts/slack-is-turning-slackbot-into-an-ai-assistant-mdvauhfuc) · The Verge · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Salesforce employees are confused about why the company is promoting a competitor inside Slack](https://daily.dev/posts/salesforce-employees-are-confused-about-why-the-company-is-promoting-a-competitor-inside-slack-zn8pqmyct) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [How one leader rebuilt his feedback loop with an AI agent](https://daily.dev/posts/how-one-leader-rebuilt-his-feedback-loop-with-an-ai-agent-d9qdbelrk) · Atlassian · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#startup](https://daily.dev/tags/startup), [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#slack](https://daily.dev/tags/slack) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/ando-wants-to-take-on-slack-with-a-team-messaging-app-that-lets-humans-and-agents-work-together-kioasvlok) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Ando wants to take on Slack with a team messaging app that lets humans and agents work together","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/ando-wants-to-take-on-slack-with-a-team-messaging-app-that-lets-humans-and-agents-work-together-kioasvlok","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ando-wants-to-take-on-slack-with-a-team-messaging-app-that-lets-humans-and-agents-work-together-kioasvlok"},"datePublished":"2026-09-24T14:37:25.783Z","dateModified":"2026-09-24T16:26:27.512Z","description":"Ando, a startup founded by Sara Du, has come out of stealth with a team messaging app designed to let AI agents participate as full team members alongside...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/12c688cb325c96753d7ad799404ddc5b?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/12c688cb325c96753d7ad799404ddc5b?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"TechCrunch","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TechCrunch","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/tc","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/ando-wants-to-take-on-slack-with-a-team-messaging-app-that-lets-humans-and-agents-work-together-kioasvlok","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"startup,ai-agents,slack","timeRequired":"PT4M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"TechCrunch","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Ando wants to take on Slack with a team messaging app that lets humans and agents work together"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ando-wants-to-take-on-slack-with-a-team-messaging-app-that-lets-humans-and-agents-work-together-kioasvlok#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What is Ando and how does it differ from Slack for using AI agents at work?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Ando is a team messaging platform built from the ground up so AI agents and humans communicate as equal participants rather than agents being installed as bolt-on apps. 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