Salesforce has pledged free Slack Enterprise access for students at participating UK colleges and universities, aiming to give them hands-on experience of workplace collaboration and AI tools before they graduate. Access runs through institutions rather than individual accounts, so colleges and universities decide how the tools are deployed to learners aged 16 and over.

Participating institutions need an active Slack plan and will set permissions, data retention policies and safeguards, including metered access to Slack’s AI features and Slackbot. Salesforce says student data will comply with UK data protection rules and will not be used to train external AI models, and colleges can register interest now for follow-up by its UK education team.

Salesforce expects institutions to use Slack to connect students with tutors, support distance-learning communities and organise campus services, with Slackbot answering questions from workspace files it has permission to access. Institutions can also add AI agents to channels to handle student service queries, coordinate study groups or support research teams.

Salesforce, headquartered in San Francisco and listed on the NYSE (CRM), reported second-quarter fiscal 2027 revenue of $11.3 billion (approximately €9.8 billion), up 11%, with a GAAP operating margin of 20.5%. The offer was announced at its AIforce World Tour in London and forms part of a $6 billion (approximately €5.2 billion) commitment to its UK business through 2030.

The structural driver is a workplace AI training gap, with Salesforce citing polling that found 61% of UK workers receive no AI training, and positioning free campus access as a way to build digital fluency, including how to assess AI outputs and understand their limits.

Zahra Bahrololoumi, president and chief executive of Salesforce UK and Ireland, said: “Young people will define the next decade of UK business,” adding that students across all disciplines need to learn to use AI responsibly.

Professor Ashley Braganza, director of the Centre for AI: Social and Digital Innovation at Brunel University of London, said access to Slack and Slackbot lets students “build the practical collaboration and digital skills employers are looking for.”

For the sector, the offer confirms that enterprise software vendors are using free campus access to place their collaboration and AI tools in front of students before they enter the workplace.

Source: edtechinnovationhub.com / sec.gov / brunel.ac.uk