Runbear vs Grok Bot

Grok Team Bots answer your Cursor team. Runbear answers the whole channel.

Grok Team Bots join Slack, but answer only teammates who linked their Slack account to Cursor and are on the Bot's team, each on their own Grok Bot allowance. Runbear puts named agents in Slack and Microsoft Teams channels, with tools that can act through each person's own connected accounts. Guests in Slack shared channels can use them with no Runbear account.

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  • Slack and Microsoft Teams
  • Answers the whole channel
  • Slack guests need no account
#northwind-onboarding9
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Priya09:41Guest · Northwind Systems
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Priya has no Runbear account and nothing installed. She is a guest in a shared Slack channel.

Runbear

Runbear is a Slack-native AI teammate. You create named agents, connect 2,000+ tools, and deploy them into the channels your team already works in. Tools set to Per-User run through the asking person's own account, and people outside your company can use those agents in a shared channel without signing up for anything.

Grok Bot

Grok Bot is xAI's agent product. Personal Bots take work from your desktop or iOS app and sign in to your tools the way you would, including ones with no clean integration. Since 28 September 2026, Team Bots (public beta) can be shared with a Cursor team and invited to Slack channels. Details here are as of October 2026, from x.ai and the Team Bots docs; it is a fast-moving beta, so confirm them with xAI.

Grok Team Bots answer linked teammates.
Runbear answers to the channel.

Both products now put a shared agent in Slack. The question that sorts them is who can reach it: the members of one Cursor team, each spending their own allowance, or everyone in the channel, on Slack or Microsoft Teams.

Runbear

  • In the channel. Agents live in Slack and Microsoft Teams. Anyone in the thread mentions them by name.
  • Open to outsiders. Customers and vendors in Slack shared channels use your agents with no account and nothing installed.
  • Acts as each person. Set a tool to Per-User and an action reaches only what the person who asked can reach.
  • Answers the front door. Support, onboarding, and billing agents that reply to real requests, then hand off to a human.

Grok Bot

  • Personal or team. Personal Bots work from the desktop or iOS app. Team Bots also join Slack channels.
  • Linked members only. A Team Bot answers only people who linked Slack to Cursor and are on its team.
  • Each person's allowance. A teammate's request counts against their own Grok Bot allowance, not the owner's.
  • Slack, not Teams. The Team Bots docs cover desktop, mobile, and Slack. They do not mention Microsoft Teams.

The full feature matrix.

FeatureRunbearGrok Bot
What it isNamed AI agents deployed into your team's chat channelsPersonal Bots, plus shared Team Bots (public beta) for Cursor teams
Where you talk to itSlack, Microsoft Teams, and the web appDesktop or iOS app; Team Bots also in Slack. No Microsoft Teams in the docs
Who can give it workAnyone in the channel, including customers and vendors as guests in Slack shared channelsMembers of the Bot's team who linked their Slack account to Cursor
Whose permissions it usesPer-User tools act as the person who asked; Shared tools use one accountPersonal Bots use your logins; Team Bot OAuth plugins use each teammate's account
Multi-agent workNamed agents different people mention: @Support, @Onboarding, @BillingBots that pass work between themselves in a thread
How it reaches tools2,000+ maintained connectors via Pipedream, MCP, native OAuthPlugins where they exist, plus browser control for tools that lack them
Customer-facing workSupport, onboarding, and billing agents that answer in the threadGuests outside the Bot's Cursor team get no answer
TriggersSchedules, one-time runs, webhooks, and events in connected appsRoutines you schedule, taught by demonstrating the task
AuditAn audit log of configuration changes on Business and EnterpriseApprove-before-send in the product; Team Bot audit logs on Enterprise
ComplianceSOC 2 Type II, plus SAML SSO on Business and EnterpriseNot stated in the Team Bots announcement or docs; confirm with xAI
What access costsUsage credits, no per-seat fee, Slack guests freeAn X Subscription Premium tier or higher, an eligible Cursor plan, or a linked SuperGrok or X Premium+ plan, and each person's own Bot usage

One Cursor team, or everyone in the channel.

This is the difference everything else follows from. A Grok Team Bot sits in Slack but serves the members of one Cursor team. A Runbear agent serves whoever is in the thread, in Slack or Microsoft Teams. Neither is wrong; they answer different questions.

Runbear · in the thread

Your agents have handles. A teammate types @Support in #customer-escalations and gets an answer where the question was asked, with the thread as context. Nobody installs anything, and nobody switches windows.

Grok Bot · in your Cursor team's Slack

A Team Bot has its own Slack app and answers an @mention, then follows the thread. It replies only to people who linked their Slack account to Cursor and are on the Bot's team. A teammate's own chat with the Bot is private, but a channel thread is visible to the whole channel. For a team that already lives in Cursor that is a clean fit; a customer or vendor in a shared channel has no way in.

Both can use the asker's own account.

How an agent authenticates decides what it can reach when someone else asks it for something. Here the two products have converged: both can act through the asker's own account.

Runbear · Per-User tools

Set a tool to Per-User and each person connects their own account. When the agent acts in that tool, it runs as the person who asked, so it reaches only what that person's account allows. Shared tools use one account for everyone, so you grant them deliberately.

Grok Bot · per teammate on Team Bots

A personal Bot logs in once as you. A Team Bot, in xAI's words, "never lends one person's access to another": each teammate connects their own account for OAuth plugins, while key or token plugins use the Bot's own credential, the same for everyone.

Driving the browser, and calling the API.

The honest answer here is that both approaches win somewhere, and the two are complementary more than competitive.

Runbear · maintained connectors

2,000+ tools wired in through Pipedream, MCP, and native OAuth, kept current by us. When a vendor ships a breaking API change, you find out by not noticing. Anything we do not cover, you add as a custom MCP server.

Grok Bot · computer use

Bots use your apps "including the tools that are harder to navigate": the legacy portal and the internal dashboard with no API at all. That is real reach no connector catalogue has, bought with the tradeoffs of driving a UI: it is slower than an API call, and logins, 2FA, and CAPTCHAs hand the screen back to you.

When to reach for each.

Choose Runbear if…

  • Your team works in Microsoft Teams, or in both Slack and Teams
  • Customers, candidates, or vendors need to reach an agent in a Slack shared channel without an account
  • You want named agents that different people mention by handle
  • You want to choose, tool by tool, whether it acts as the asker or through one shared account
  • You need SOC 2 Type II, SAML SSO, and an audit log of configuration changes
  • Work should start when something happens in a connected tool, not when you open an app

Choose Grok Bot if…

  • You are a solo operator and the queue you want cleared is your own
  • The tools that matter have no API, and a Bot driving the browser is the only way in
  • You already pay for an X Subscription Premium tier, an eligible Cursor plan, or SuperGrok
  • You want to watch the agent work on its own screen while it does
  • Everyone who needs the agent is on your Cursor team and works in Slack
  • You would rather demonstrate a workflow once than configure one

Runbear and Grok Bot, side by side.

Grok Bot is xAI's agent product, launched in early beta in August 2026. You create named Bots, such as Sales Outbound or Chief of Staff, and give them work from a desktop or iOS app; Bots sign in to your tools and use them the way you would. On 28 September 2026 xAI added Team Bots, in public beta for members of a Cursor team: a Bot published to a whole team that can also be invited to Slack channels. Details on this page are as of October 2026.

A Team Bot can. The owner adds it to Slack as its own app, and in a channel it answers when someone @mentions it, then follows that thread. It answers only people who have linked their Slack account to Cursor, and a linked account that is not on the Bot's Cursor team gets a private notice instead of an answer. Personal Bots are used from the desktop or iOS app. A Runbear agent answers anyone in the channel who @mentions it, including guests from other companies in a shared channel.

Grok Bot reaches Slack through a Team Bot. Its owner publishes the Bot to their Cursor team in the Grok Bot desktop app, then chooses Bring to your team's Slack, connects a workspace they can install apps in, and invites the Bot to channels with /invite. If the workspace requires approval for new apps, a Slack admin has to approve it first. Each teammate then links their Slack account once under Settings > General > Team Bots before the Bot will answer them (as of October 2026). A Runbear agent is added to Slack through the Runbear Slack app, and anyone in the channel can mention it without linking an account.

xAI's Team Bots documentation covers the desktop app, the mobile app, and Slack, and does not mention Microsoft Teams (as of October 2026). Runbear agents work in both Slack and Microsoft Teams.

For a Slack-first team that is already on Cursor, a Grok Team Bot is a real option: one Bot, shared expertise, and private one-to-one chats. Runbear fits when the people asking are not all on one Cursor team: colleagues without a Grok Bot allowance, customers and vendors in Slack shared channels, or a team that works in Microsoft Teams. Runbear agents answer everyone in the channel and are priced on usage credits with no per-seat fee.

Yes, with Team Bots, if everyone is on the Bot's Cursor team. To use the Bot in Slack, each teammate links their Slack account once, and xAI says their requests count against that teammate's own Grok Bot allowance, not the owner's. If a teammate is out of usage, the Bot tells them instead of using the owner's. With Runbear, everyone in the channel can mention the agent and usage draws on your organization's credits.

Yes. A Runbear agent deployed to a Slack Connect or shared channel answers anyone in that channel, including guests from outside your company, with no Runbear account and nothing to install. A Grok Team Bot answers only people who linked their Slack account to Cursor and are on the Bot's team, so a guest from another company who is not on that team gets no answer.

A personal Grok Bot acts as you: you log it in once and it uses your apps and websites. A Team Bot keeps identities apart; xAI says it never lends one person's access to another. For OAuth plugins each teammate connects their own account, while key or token plugins use one Bot credential for everyone. In Runbear, each tool is set to Per-User or Shared. With Per-User, an action runs through the connected account of the person who asked, so it sees and does only what that person's account allows. A Shared tool uses one account for everyone.

Team Bots are available to members of a Cursor team, and on Enterprise, audit logs record Team Bot events. Treat availability and controls as moving targets and confirm them with xAI. Runbear is SOC 2 Type II today, with SAML SSO and an audit log of configuration changes on Business and Enterprise, SCIM on Enterprise, and Per-User or Shared auth for each tool.

It does not have to. Grok Bot is strong at reaching the legacy portal or internal dashboard that has no API, by using the site the way a person would. Runbear is where a request arrives from a teammate or a customer, in Slack or Microsoft Teams, and has to be answered with the right permissions. A common shape is Grok Bot as one person's back-office operator and Runbear as the team's front door.

On The X Subscription, Grok Bot is included on the Premium, Super, and Ultra tiers, for individuals and team seats, and draws from the same weekly usage pool as Cursor and the Grok apps; Plus and Free do not include it. Existing paid individual Cursor plans, self-serve Cursor Teams, and a linked SuperGrok or X Premium+ subscription also include access, metered on your Cursor account, and Cursor Enterprise teams enable it through their account team (as of October 2026). On a Team Bot, each teammate's requests count against their own Grok Bot allowance. Runbear is priced on usage credits with no per-seat fee, so everyone in your Slack workspace can reach your agents, and guests in shared channels can too, without another license. We do not quote Grok Bot price figures here; check Cursor's Grok Bot plans page for current numbers.

Install the Slack app, point an agent at a knowledge source, connect the tools it needs, and mention it in a channel. The step-by-step guide is at runbear.io/posts/how-to-add-ai-agent-to-slack.

Keep your Grok Bot. Give the whole channel an agent too.

Bring a real workflow and we'll wire it live on a demo call.

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