How HeyTaco Uses AI

Last updated: October 8, 2026

At HeyTaco, AI plays a small, specific role: it helps teammates get a conversation going, then steps back so the people can do the talking. Here's exactly where we use it, what it can and can't see, and how you stay in control. Plain English, no fine print.

Where we use AI

Taco Chats. Taco Chats pairs you up with a coworker for a conversation in Slack, and HeyTaco joins as a friendly facilitator. It suggests icebreakers, offers follow-up questions, and helps keep the conversation moving. Think of it as a good host at a party: it makes the introduction, keeps things lively, and lets the two of you do the real talking.

Behind the scenes. Our team also uses AI tools for internal work, like drafting and organizing. Those tools don't have access to customer data.

That's it. If we ever add AI somewhere new, we'll update this page.

What the AI does (and doesn't do)

In Taco Chats, HeyTaco's AI does:

  • Suggest questions and conversation topics
  • Read along in real time so its prompts actually fit your conversation
  • Nudge things forward if the chat goes quiet
  • Count how many messages are exchanged in each chat to calculate a participation score, and share that score with your workspace admin so they can see how the feature is being used

It doesn't:

  • Save your messages. We only count how many were sent.
  • Judge what you said. The participation score is based only on the number of messages, not what you talked about or how the conversation went.
  • Write summaries or recaps of what you talked about
  • Share your conversation with your manager, HR, or anyone else
  • Decide who gets tacos or rewards
  • Make any decisions about your job

Your conversations and your data

To be a helpful facilitator, the AI reads the messages in your Taco Chat as they happen. It doesn't access any of your other Slack messages.

We don't save your messages: HeyTaco doesn't store what you and your chat partner say. The only thing we collect is how many messages were exchanged in your chat. That's what we use to calculate the participation score.

Who can see your chats: Your conversation lives in Slack, between you and your chat partner. Workspace admins see a participation score for each chat, but never what was said. (Like any Slack conversation, your chat is also subject to your company's Slack settings.)

Research and marketing: Taco Chats data is never used in our research reports or marketing stats.

Our AI provider: Taco Chats is powered by Claude, made by Anthropic. Anthropic processes your messages on our behalf so HeyTaco can respond, and doesn't use them to train its models. Anthropic may keep what it processes for a limited time for trust and safety purposes, then deletes it.

Deleting your chat: You can delete the Taco Chat conversation from Slack anytime. Since we don't save your messages, there's no copy on our end to worry about. Message counts used for participation scores are kept according to our data retention policy, which you can find in our Trust Center.

GDPR: For how we handle personal data for people in the EU and UK, see our GDPR page.

You're in control

Taco Chats is off unless your workspace admin turns it on and invites you. Once invited, you're in, but you can opt out anytime in your HeyTaco settings, and you can delete a Taco Chat from your Slack whenever you want.

When the AI gets it wrong

AI isn't perfect. Occasionally HeyTaco might suggest a question that falls flat or misread the vibe. We've built in guardrails to keep conversations respectful and away from sensitive topics. If something feels off, tell us at support@heytaco.com. A real human on our team reads every report.

Our promises

HeyTaco's AI will always be clearly identified as HeyTaco. We'll never quietly expand what it can see or do. If we make a meaningful change to how we use AI, we'll update this page and let you know before it takes effect.

Questions?

We'd genuinely love to hear them. Reach us at support@heytaco.com.