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What is Cowork?

Cowork is a chat workspace where you work with Slate, your AI agent. Describe what you need in plain language, and Slate plans the work, runs the right tools, and streams the results back to you. Use Cowork for open-ended, one-off work — research, audits, analysis, planning, and content. To open it, click Cowork in the sidebar.
Cowork page showing the task sidebar, conversation area, and input bar

The Cowork workspace

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Why use Cowork?

A Recipe runs a fixed, repeatable procedure. Cowork is the opposite end: open-ended and conversational. When a task is exploratory or you only need it once, just ask Slate directly instead of building a procedure first.

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Start a conversation

There are two ways to begin:
  1. Type a request in the input box (“Ask slate anything…”) and send it.
  2. Pick a suggestion to start instantly. The starter prompts are:
    • Draft a blog based on top keywords
    • Audit our pricing page against competitors
    • Find 5 high-upside keyword opportunities
    • Analyze top 10 ranking pages
    • Create a technical SEO audit checklist

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The Cowork workspace

The screen has three areas:
  • Left — your work. Each conversation is a Task. Past tasks are listed here and can be grouped into Projects. Start a fresh conversation with New Task.
  • Center — the conversation. Your messages and Slate’s responses, plus a live view of what Slate is doing while it works.
  • Right — the preview panel. Opens to show generated documents and files.
The input bar sits at the bottom, with controls to attach files, pick a model, and send.

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What you can do

  • Ask anything in plain language — a question, an instruction, or a multi-step task.
  • Attach files for context. Click the attachment button or drag and drop spreadsheets (CSV/Excel), PDFs, documents, and images.
  • Use slash commands to point Slate at a specific resource or scope. Type / in the input box to see them:
  • Pick a model for a message. Default uses your saved workspace setup, or you can choose a specific model (with an optional thinking level).
  • Pause and resume. Stop an active run, then send a message to steer it or pick up where it left off.

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How Cowork works

When you send a request, Slate:
  1. Plans the steps it will take.
  2. Runs tools — research, analytics, writing, and workflows.
  3. Streams its activity so you can watch progress in real time.
  4. Pauses when needed — to ask for your approval before a sensitive action, or for input when it needs a decision.
A task shows its current state as you go: New, In Progress, Paused, or Needs Input.

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Outputs

Slate’s results appear in the conversation in two forms:
  • Answers and content — text and structured content shown inline.
  • Files — generated documents such as PDF, DOCX, XLSX, and CSV. Open them in the right-hand preview panel and download them from there.

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Tasks, Projects, and schedules

  • Each conversation is a Task you can reopen anytime from the sidebar.
  • Group related tasks into a Project to keep work organized.
  • Tasks can be Interactive (run now) or Scheduled (run automatically on a recurring cadence).

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Use cases

A few common ways to put Cowork to work:
  • Find keyword opportunities — ask Slate to surface high-upside keywords and where you can realistically rank.
  • Audit a page against competitors — point Slate at a page (like pricing) and get a prioritized list of gaps and fixes.
  • Analyze your top pages — have Slate review your best-ranking pages and explain what is working.
  • Draft content — turn your top keywords into a blog draft or outline, grounded in current rankings.
  • Run a technical SEO audit — generate an audit checklist for a site or a section.
  • Check AI visibility — use /tracker to see how your brand shows up in AI answers and which sources get cited.
  • Work with a sheet or workflow — use /sheets or /workflow to run or analyze a specific Slate resource, then /tracker-export to pull a report as CSV or PDF.

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Cowork vs. Recipes

Cowork sits at the top of the sidebar and Recipes live under Automate, but they fit different needs:
  • Cowork — open-ended and conversational. Best for one-off or exploratory work.
  • Recipes — a saved, repeatable procedure you run with new inputs each time.
If you find yourself asking Slate for the same multi-step task again and again, capture it as a Recipe.

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What’s next

  • Recipes — turn repeatable work into a reusable procedure.
  • Workflows — build fixed, block-by-block automations.
  • Sheets — run automation in bulk across rows.
  • Brand Kit — give Slate brand context to use in its work.