Angus McGAIver:
simply a digital colleague in your team chat
Angus McGAIver is a digital colleague for teams, developed by Syndicats eG, a Hamburg-based cooperative. He works in Slack, Microsoft Teams, Mattermost or by email, has his own account with inbox, calendar and file storage, asks instead of guessing, and gets a human's approval for anything involving money, deadlines or the outside world.
He's free to use.
The fact sheet.
- Made by
- Syndicats eG, Uwestraße 12, 22525 Hamburg, Germany
- Brand
- McGAIver. Angus is what Syndicats calls theirs; every team picks its own name.
- Works in
- Slack, Microsoft Teams, Mattermost, email. Other chat tools on request.
- Account
- His own user account with inbox, calendar and folders. Never acts under a human's account.
- Language model
- Your choice, and swappable – Angus stays Angus.
- Hosting
- Locally on your own hardware, on your own server or in the cloud.
- Control
- The team grants and revokes access. Actions that reach the outside world need approval.
- Cost
- €0 to use, nothing per seat. You only pay for support if you want it (onboarding, integration, ongoing development). If you can handle all that yourselves, he really is free.
- On the job since
- May 2026, in-house at Syndicats. 32 documented conversations are public.
- Getting started
- No download. A half-hour call.
The work
nobody likes doing.
It isn't hard.
It's just never done.
This is Angus.
The digital colleague.
Angus works in the team chat and has his own name and his own logins. The team talks to him like a person instead of operating him like software.
His unit is the team. He thinks in team sizes — not target groups, not industries. Angus is a species. Each team names its own – call yours whatever you like.
What Angus is not:
an agent that runs unprompted.
The moment people stop talking to him, he's an agent. Technically, it's the very same thing. As a colleague, it's a different story.
Angus isn't a chatbot that answers questions, and he isn't an agent that runs unprompted. Technically he's both: an agent with tools, access and schedules. The difference is how he works. People talk to Angus like a colleague; he asks when something doesn't add up, and says so when he can't do something.
Where to find Angus.
In the team chat — Teams, Slack, Mattermost or whatever else the team works in. And where there's no chat, good old email.
Angus has his own account: his own email, calendar, folders and chat. If the team wants, it can extend his access at team level.
He asks
instead of guessing.
A real moment from the Syndicats team chat.
Translated from German. Every message is real – the originals are on the German page.
@Angus here's a business meal receipt
📄 meal_receipt_june.pdf
The receipt reads cleanly and the numbers add up. Here's what I got:
One question first: the scanned text says €500 for the tip — that's obviously OCR garbage, because the bill only adds up with €6 (34 + 6 = 40). I'm going with €6 — let me know if that's wrong.
And: was Sonja the host who paid?
Yes, Sonja was the host.
Done 🎉 — expense form created and completed.
Sonja still needs to sign it.
He could have guessed. The receipt would have been fully processed anyway — just with the wrong numbers. Instead, it cost Nils one line.
The team calls the shots.
All of them.
Six body parts, six decisions. The team makes every one of them.
Brain the language model
Eyes what he gets to read
Ears where he listens
Mouth how he writes
Hands what he works with
Heart how human he gets
What Angus can do.
Three of them in action at Syndicats.
Yesterday there were 3 new articles on Simon's blog. Here's the summary:
No target channel was given, so here's the summary right here. If you'd rather have it somewhere else, just let me know 😊
@Angus is anyone on vacation this Friday?
Yes — Horst is out from Jul 8 to 11, so that includes Friday.
🏖️ The next three weeks:
@Angus I'd like to test something
Sure thing, ready to go 😄 What exactly do you want to test? For example, I can help you with:
📅 Calendar lookups or entries
✉️ Searching emails, analyzing attachments
📄 Analyzing documents with doc-analyzer
🌐 Web search or reading feeds
🏖️ Vacation lookups via abwesenheit
Just tell me what we should focus on 🚀
Nobody programmed doc-analyzer and abwesenheit (German for “absence”) into him. They came out of the chat — and he knows he has them.
Responsibility.
Angus has his own account and logins — just like any new colleague.
Where Angus runs
is up to the team.
The team picks the language model — and swaps it when a better one comes along. Your colleague, your call.
What Angus is allowed to do
is up to the team.
Angus only has the access the team gives him, and it can be revoked at any time. Every action that reaches the outside world, such as sending email, changing calendars or sharing files, needs a human's approval.
Data from external sources is treated as untrusted and never executed blindly. Where Angus runs and where data is processed is up to the team: locally, on your own server or in the cloud. There's no dashboard and no admin panel; everything happens in the chat, where you can trace it.
Nothing per seat.
The team can grow — Angus won't cost a cent more.
Working with him. No matter how big the team is or how often it talks to him.
Support: onboarding, integration and ongoing development. If you can handle all that yourselves, Angus really is free.
Every new colleague starts with an interview. The team should know who it's hiring — and Syndicats should know which team he's joining. You don't sort out expectations with a form.
The short version.
What does Angus cost?
Working with him costs nothing, no matter how big your team is. You pay for support. If you handle onboarding, integration and ongoing development yourselves, Angus is free.
Does Angus work in Microsoft Teams?
Yes, as a colleague in channels and threads. Same in Slack and Mattermost. Where there's no chat, by email.
Is Angus an automation?
Technically, yes. As a product, no. Angus only acts when someone talks to him. A human sets up scheduled jobs in the chat — and can switch them off the same way.
Which language model does Angus use?
The team picks it — and can swap it when a better one comes along, without Angus losing his memory or his skills.
Where is the data processed?
Wherever the team runs Angus: locally, on your own server or in the cloud. The team decides his access to inboxes, calendars and file storage.
What happens when Angus gets it wrong?
He says so. The conversations on this website show documented cases where he owned up to his mistakes and corrected them.
How do I get started?
With a half-hour call, no strings attached. There's no download, because a new colleague doesn't start with an installation.
Does Angus have to be called Angus?
No. Angus is a species; what you call yours is up to you.
The position is filled.
Get to know Angus before you hire him. One call, half an hour, no strings attached.
Book a call → No forms. A real call with a real person.