Unthread’s AI Slack bots automate support for Intuit and Lemonade

Unthread, a New York-based startup, has developed AI-powered Slack-native support bots that automate customer service and internal ticketing for companies like Intuit, Lemonade, and Automattic. The company is a Startup Battlefield Top 20 finalist at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, showcasing technology that aims to replace chaotic Slack-based support systems with organized, automated workflows that can extend across HR, legal, and finance departments.

The big picture: Unthread transforms the disorganized nature of Slack communications into structured support systems by combining AI automation with traditional ticketing functionality, creating self-updating knowledge bases for entire organizations.

How it works: The platform builds custom support bots that integrate directly within Slack to handle common issues automatically and route complex problems to appropriate teams.

• The system can work alongside existing tools like Jira and Zendesk, but often replaces them entirely with more flexible AI-driven solutions.
• Beyond IT support, Unthread’s AI model adapts to serve HR, legal, and finance departments with customized automation workflows.
• Once deployed, the system monitors problem patterns across departments to identify and automate recurring tasks before they become bottlenecks.

What the founder is saying: CEO Tom Bachant traced the company’s origins to witnessing Slack’s chaotic support environment firsthand.

• “The first point was just seeing that Slack was this kind of chaotic beast that needed to be tracked better, and then seeing that the actual work that’s being requested by these teams could easily be automated,” Bachant explained.
• “LLMs have changed the way people use our product, but ultimately it hasn’t changed the problem that we’re solving,” he noted about the role of AI in their platform.

The founder’s journey: Bachant’s path to Unthread included multiple startup attempts and lessons learned from customer feedback.

• His first company, Dashride, was a ride-sharing service for college students that was acquired by Cruise in 2018.
• After an unsuccessful HR startup, he pivoted to focus on Slack-based support challenges.
• “We could only do this because we were having so many conversations with customers,” Bachant said. “Having that very clear picture of who the customer is, why they care about your product, why they might leave and use something else, has helped us to make a lot of decisions.”

Company status: Unthread currently operates as a lean 10-person team based in New York, serving high-profile clients while expanding their platform’s capabilities and competing at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 from October 27-29 in San Francisco.