Build a No-Code AI Slack Assistant with Needle + Make

So I just wrapped up a new tutorial that I'm really pumped about. We've integrated Needle with Make (the platform formerly known as Integromat).

Look, we've all been there… you're deep in flow state when someone pings you with a question that's probably answered somewhere in your docs. But who has time to find it

?

Why I Built This

I created this workflow because, well, our support folks were going nuts. Every day they'd get bombarded with the same questions:

"Where's that onboarding doc again?" "How do I reset my password?" "What's our policy on XYZ?"

Sound familiar?

We had all this information documented somewhere, but finding it was like searching for a needle (no pun intended) in a haystack. Our poor support team kept answering the same stuff over and over while their actual work piled up.

And let's be real… according to McKinsey, people waste almost two hours EVERY DAY just hunting for information they need. That's 10 hours a week! Think about what your team could do with that time back.

The "Aha!" Moment

One day it hit me… we already use Slack for everything. What if people could just ask their questions there and get instant answers from our docs?

So I connected three tools I love:

• Slack (where everyone already lives)

• Needle (our knowledge base with search)

• Make (to glue everything together without coding)

The result? A stupid-simple solution that:

• Watches for questions in a dedicated Slack channel

• Searches our private docs for relevant info

• Uses AI to craft a helpful, human-sounding response

• Posts it right back in the thread

The beauty is you don't need to write a single line of code to set this up.

Behind the Scenes: How It Actually Works

So what's happening under the hood? It's surprisingly straightforward:

First, someone drops a question in our dedicated Slack channel (I called mine "Make-Needle-RAG" because I'm super creative with names 😅).

Then Make springs into action. It grabs that question and sends it to Needle, which does what it does best… searching through all your docs, wikis, FAQs, whatever you've uploaded… and pulls out the most relevant bits.

This is where things get a bit technical, but stick with me. Make takes all those search results and bundles them into one text chunk.

Next comes the magic. That text bundle and the original question get sent to OpenAI with simple instructions: "Answer this question using only this information." This keeps the AI from making stuff up… it can only use what's in your docs.

Finally, the answer gets posted back in Slack in the same thread as the original question.

The whole thing takes seconds. Someone asks, "What's our refund policy?" Before anyone on your team sees the notification, an accurate answer is waiting. Pretty cool, right?

Who Needs This Yesterday

I originally built this for our tech support folks, but it turns out loads of teams are finding it useful:

Our IT team set up a "#tech-help" channel where people ask everything from "How do I connect to the VPN?" to "Why is my laptop making that weird noise?" The bot handles about 70% of questions without a human ever getting involved.

The HR crew loves it for onboarding. New hires can ask about benefits, policies, and where to find stuff without bothering their already-swamped manager for the fifteenth time that day.

Our product team uses it to keep track of feature decisions and roadmap stuff. "When are we shipping the new dashboard?" gets an instant, accurate answer instead of a 20-message thread of people guessing.

And our customer-facing teams? They're using it to look up product specs, pricing details, and troubleshooting steps while they're on calls.. without the awkward "let me put you on hold while I ask someone" dance.

Setting This Up (It's Easier Than You Think)

Want to build this yourself? Here's the quick version:

First, dump all your company knowledge into a Needle collection… policies, FAQs, documentation, whatever people keep asking about. Don't worry about organizing it perfectly; Needle's semantic search is pretty forgiving.

Next, head over to Make and create a new scenario. You'll need to connect three services:

• Slack (to monitor for questions)

• Needle (to search your docs)

• OpenAI (to craft nice responses)

The workflow is dead simple:

1. Watch a Slack channel for new messages

2. Send the question to Needle

3. Grab the search results and bundle them together

4. Ask OpenAI to answer based on those results

5. Post the answer back to Slack

I've recorded a step-by-step video tutorial (linked at the end of this post) that walks through the entire setup.

Once it's running, ask it some test questions and see how it does. You might need to tweak your prompts or add more docs to your collection, but that's normal!

Give It a Shot

Look, I'm not saying this will solve all your knowledge problems. But for the amount of effort it takes to set up (literally less than 30 minutes), the payoff is positive in terms of ROI.

All you need to get started is:

• A free Needle account with some docs uploaded

• A Make account (the free plan works for testing)

• Admin access to your Slack workspace

Check out my full tutorial video to see exactly how I built this. I walk through every click, setting, and everything else you need to know.

If you get stuck or have questions, drop by our Discord. We're a friendly bunch and love seeing what people build with this stuff.

Good luck and let me know how it goes!

Jan

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P.S. If you end up building something cool with this, I'd love to hear about it! Tag me on LinkedIn or shoot me an email.

P.P.S. Grab your Needle account here (we have a forever-free tier) and Make here if you need one.