Amazon to license Slack for all employees, while Slack will use underlying tech from AWS's Chime video-calling service to improve its video and audio calls
This swap lands weeks after Slack opened its platform to rival calling tools via [[a:952127|an app integrating Microsoft Teams calling features and VoIP hooks into Zoom, WebEx, and Jabber]] — a deliberate neutrality play against Microsoft's bundled suite. On the other side sits Amazon, which has been building Chime since its 2017 launch across Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android, stocking it with the Do.com meeting-productivity acquisition.
Read retrospectively, the deal also foreshadowed Chime's own trajectory: Amazon later moved to end Chime support entirely and standardize internal meetings on Zoom, making this licensing swap one of the last meaningful commercial uses of the Chime codebase.
First-order effects
Every Amazon employee gets Slack as a licensed tool immediately, giving Slack a marquee enterprise logo at the height of its competitive fight with Microsoft Teams.
Slack upgrades its native audio and video calling using Chime's underlying technology, reducing its reliance on third-party call bridges like the Zoom and Teams integrations it had just shipped.
Second-order effects
AWS converts a consumer-facing conferencing product that struggled to win standalone share into B2B revenue, licensing Chime's stack to Slack even as the branded service fades.
Slack's interop-first posture forces competitors to answer on openness versus bundling — the same logic behind its Teams and Zoom integration apps now extends to its biggest e-commerce rival becoming a customer.
Third-order effects
The pattern — rent your rival's front-end while selling them your back-end — points toward workplace software splitting into an experience layer and an infrastructure layer, with Chime's tech outliving the Chime product itself.
If interoperability keeps beating bundled suites, conferencing consolidates around a few shared infrastructure providers whose technology powers multiple competing hubs.
The trend: Enterprise collaboration is decoupling into interchangeable front-end hubs built on shared calling infrastructure, a split visible in everything from Chime's licensing-afterlife to Slack's integration-first strategy.
Slack moving entirely inside the Amazon universe should worry anyone who uses Slack for any kind of communication they wouldn't want Amazon, or the cops, to know about https://www.theverge.com/...
I've only been on Chime calls a couple of times but they seemed ...fine? Even if they're just fine, “fine” is a 10X improvement over Slack's current conferencing. https://www.theverge.com/...
Big move. @SlackHQ & @awscloud deepen partnership w several moves incl. Slack embedding the Amazon Chime SDK for native video meetings. Big propeller for Slack & Chime in the hot video collab space. AWS is quietly building a solid workplace app strategy👍 https://press.aboutamazon…
Great pragmatic announcement by Amazon and Slack! Slack gets the much needed video & audio capabilities. AWS gets developer mindshare. Let's see how they build on this in the next year...
CNBC: Amazon licenses Slack for workers as Slack adopts AWS video-call tech “The alliance helps both companies battle Microsoft, whose Teams communications service has grown in popularity alongside Slack during the coronavirus pandemic.” https://www.cnbc.com/...
I had initially imagined a Slack and Zoom formal tie-up, but for the time being it's Slack and Chime. AWS makes money regardless. What a business. 😀 https://twitter.com/...
Quite an admission, and self-burn, by an Amazon executive about his company's own video-chat product, Chime: “It's nice, but it's not Slack,” said Matt Garman, AWS' vice president for sales and marketing. https://www.cnbc.com/...
This is a news I was waiting for ❤️ - Slack will use the Amazon Chime SDK to power audio/video calls, and AWS employees will use Slack to collaborate more efficiently 🙌. https://www.businesswire.com/ ...
Amazon-Slack deal is multi-year -> “Today, Amazon Web Services .. an https://amazon.com/ company, and Slack Technologies .. announced a new multi-year agreement to deliver solutions for enhanced enterprise workforce collaboration.” https://www.businesswire.com/ ...
Microsoft Teams isn't popular in my startup network but based on Amazon and Slack announcement, they definitely see it as a big threat! Let's see what Zoom will do to add slack-like features and develop their platform play. https://twitter.com/...
Amazon makes Slack available to all employees while Slack adopts AWS video-calling service Chime. Huge deal for Slack. Presents clear challenge both to Microsoft Teams and Azure https://www.cnbc.com/...
i've used Amazon Chime once and uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh not expecting it to improve Slack's voice/video chat much https://twitter.com/...
the Slack and Amazon partnership also means that ALL of Amazon's employees are moving to Slack. I don't have an exact number, but it could mean more than the IBM deal (350,000). This is a pretty big deal for Slack. https://www.theverge.com/...
This seems smart on both fronts, Butterfield told me earlier this year that even Slack doesn't use its own video tech internally. Gives off Walmart-Microsoft partnership vibes, too, uniting against a common foe. https://twitter.com/...