Metal Meets Your Team Where It Works: Email, Slack, and Teams
James O'Dwyer
Metal now works where private equity teams already work. One context layer behind every inbox, channel, and AI tool your firm already uses.
How Can Private Equity Teams Use Metal Outside the App?
Metal meets teams in four places beyond the web app. Each surface reads from the same Context Graph and follows each person's Metal permissions.
Where you work | What you do | What comes back |
|---|---|---|
Send Metal a question at ozzy@metal.ai or ask it to run a workflow | A cited reply on the same thread, with files or workflow outputs when you ask for them | |
Workflow inbox | Forward a teaser, CIM, or NDA to a workflow's address | A completion email, the output files if the workflow sends them, and the full run in Metal |
Slack | Mention @Metal to ask a question or run a workflow | An answer or workflow output in the thread |
Microsoft Teams | Mention @Metal in an approved team | The same agent as Slack |
Connect Claude, ChatGPT, or Copilot to Metal MCP | Answers and workflow runs inside the AI tool you already use, drawn from your firm's record |
Email Metal a Question
Send a question from your work email to ozzy@metal.ai and Metal replies on the same thread. It is the same assistant that powers Metal chat, so it can draw on your firm's companies, deals, documents, and activity, search the web, cite its sources, read the attachments you include, and return outputs directly in email.
Follow up in the thread. Reply to keep going, or pick up the same session in the Metal app.
Loop in your team. CC colleagues, and Metal replies to everyone at your firm on the thread.
Run a workflow. Ask for a Company Screening Report on the company in the email.
Set up dedicated inboxes. Give a team its own address, scoped to its skills and connections.
Check every source. Each answer cites the deal record, document, or email behind it.
A few questions that work well over email:
"What do we already know about this company, and when did we last speak with them?"
"Summarize the attached teaser against our screening criteria."
"Which of our open deals in healthcare services have had no activity this month?"
Why Connect Outlook or Exchange to Metal?
Connecting your mailbox lets Metal read the correspondence and calendar behind your work. With Microsoft Outlook, Metal chat can search your email, calendar, and contacts live. With Microsoft Exchange, Metal also stores mail, meetings, and contacts as part of your firm's context and links them to the people, companies, LPs, and fundraising processes they concern.
Capability | Microsoft Outlook | Microsoft Exchange |
|---|---|---|
Live email, calendar, and contact tools in chat | Yes | Yes |
Stores mail and meetings as activities in Metal | No | Yes, checked about every five minutes |
Links correspondence to people, companies, LPs, funds, and fundraising processes | No | Yes |
Keeps Last Activity on LPs and fundraising processes current | No | Yes |
For IR teams, this is the difference between asking who has gone quiet and knowing. Last Activity on an LP reflects the real correspondence in partners' inboxes, and a workflow such as the LP meeting briefing can read the relevant Exchange history before a meeting, alongside the relationship and commitment context already in Metal. Admins can move existing Outlook users to Exchange without asking anyone to reconnect.
How Do You Trigger a Metal Workflow by Email?
Some Metal workflows have their own inbound email address. Send or forward an email to that address and Metal starts a workflow run. When the run completes, Metal sends a completion email, and if the workflow is set up to email its output, the files arrive with it. The full output, steps, and report stay in Metal to review.
Can I Forward a Banker's Email Straight to a Workflow?
Yes. Forward a banker's teaser or CIM to your firm's deal intake address. The intake agent replies on the same thread to confirm receipt, reports back when the deal is filed, and asks when it needs a decision, such as which CRM opportunity the deal matches.
The same pattern runs across the firm's processes:
Deal intake
A forwarded teaser or CIM becomes a reviewed deal in Metal and, if configured, in DealCloud or Salesforce. If the same email arrives again within 30 days, Metal recognizes it and does not process the deal twice.NDA Review
A forwarded NDA opens a review against your firm’s NDA policies.Your own workflows
Any workflow your firm builds can start from an email.
Deal intake and other email-triggered workflows are configured for each firm, because every firm routes mail, owns records, and maps CRM fields differently. Your Metal contact sets up the address with you.
Use Metal in Slack and Microsoft Teams
You can use Metal in Slack, with Microsoft Teams on the way. Mention @Metal in an approved Slack channel or send it a direct message, and it answers from your firm's context using your own Metal permissions.
With @Metal in the channel, the team can pull prior looks, past conversations, and relevant documents into the thread before the discussion goes further.
How Do You Set Up Metal in Slack?
An admin installs the Slack connector once for the firm and approves the channels @Metal can join. Each person then links their own Slack account to Metal.
What Can @Metal Do in a Channel?
Metal answers questions about your firm's companies, deals, people, documents, and activity. It reads the recent thread so it understands what the team is discussing. You can also ask @Metal to run any workflow you have access to.Metal does not import your Slack history, threads, or attachments into Metal as firm records.
Metal MCP: Context Layer in Every AI Tool You Use
Metal MCP connects the AI your team already uses, such as Claude, ChatGPT, and Copilot, to your firm's context layer. Through MCP, those assistants can search Metal's companies, deals, people, lists, and documents, and run the firm's configured workflows, all under each person's Metal permissions.
Related reading
AI workflows for private equity deal teams · Context layer vs. file search: a private equity AI benchmark
