A Redesigned Inbox, Direct LinkedIn Publishing, and Ask Ballad in Slack

This entry ships three things: a redesigned Inbox, direct LinkedIn publishing from your own profile, and Ask Ballad reachable from Slack. The Inbox moves to a single list-and-detail layout instead of separate stacked sections. LinkedIn posts and image posts can now publish straight to your own connected profile, on schedule or on approval. And Ask Ballad is now available through Slack — with /ballad, a DM to the bot, or an @mention in a channel — answering questions tied to your Ballad identity. Details on each, plus a set of smaller changes, are below.

The redesigned Inbox

The Inbox used to be a stack of separate sections. Now it's one list on the left, the selected item on the right. Select nothing and you get a daily briefing built around one number and one recommended next action, with filters for kind and voice, a decision bar pinned to the bottom, and a split Create button for drafting, logging replies, or recording a release.

Approving a draft now happens inside a live preview of the finished piece — the LinkedIn/X frame, the email layout, or over the image — with a rich-text toolbar for headings, lists, quotes and links, instead of a form sitting beside a preview. Voice scores now read as percentages ('voice match 75% · AI-sounding 20%'), articles carry their own voice-match score, and release notes skip the voice check since facts are what matter there.

Reject a draft and Ballad asks why — chips or free text — and that reason feeds its planning. Every decision bar also has a Regenerate button that gets you a fresh draft of the same kind, still attached to the same release or interview.

The Content page drops its Queue and Schedule tabs. Anything awaiting approval now lives in the Inbox.

Direct LinkedIn publishing and Ask Ballad in Slack

LinkedIn posts and image posts can now go out under your own profile instead of getting handed to you to post manually. Connect your profile in Settings, and Ballad publishes at the scheduled time or on approval, then follows up with the link as a comment. As the connection nears expiry, Ballad prompts you to reconnect — you'll see it in both the Inbox and Settings.

Ask Ballad now works from Slack: use /ballad, DM the bot, or @mention it in a channel, and it matches the question to your Ballad identity (with a clear error if it can't). Add Ballad to Slack from the website.

Ask Ballad also moved to the top of the Today briefing, now drawing on replies, launch weeks, posting-time performance, voice-gate results, customer interviews, competitors, feedback themes, sequence engagement and past recommendations — and every answer ends with text or a visible error, never silence.

Also in this release

Sequences now start from a goal instead of a blank form. Pick welcome, onboarding, win-back, or your own, describe the goal in a sentence, and Ballad proposes the trigger, timing, and every email into the Inbox for review, edit, reject-with-reason, or regenerate. Ballad can also propose a sequence on its own when it spots an opportunity.

Voice and collection pages now show Scheduled, Published, and Rejected as separate tabs sorted by actual publish date. A changelog's header shows its real digest cadence, and newsletter issues automatically recap your recent product releases.

Signals and Today now show X follower counts and email subscriber totals over time, with weekly and monthly trends, plus a site-traffic panel — sessions, pageviews, top pages — once your analytics is connected. Ballad's daily analysis now factors in week-over-week traffic and follower swings.

A single Google consent screen now covers both Search Console and Analytics, with Ballad auto-finding the matching property and GA4 web stream. Google Analytics becomes your traffic source whenever Vercel isn't connected.

Onboarding now finds writing samples from your site and X account automatically. You can subscribe to Ballad's own product updates from Settings. Signing in takes you straight to the Inbox.