SAN FRANCISCO — Taking a cue from competing online services like Slack, which let workers chat and share information on the job, Microsoft is adding a new program called “Teams” to its Office 365 suite of internet productivity software.

Analysts say Microsoft is catching up to a trend in which a host of tech companies – even Facebook – are competing to offer specialized online networks for organizations, as workers increasingly find that email and simple document-sharing services are too limited for communicating and collaborating.

Like competing services, Microsoft’s new “Teams” product provides a central place online for workplace groups to chat, share files and perform other tasks.

But unlike competitors, Microsoft is offering the ability to easily transition into other widely used Microsoft programs, such as Outlook for email and calendars and Skype for voice and video conferences. “Teams” can also incorporate artificially intelligent “bots” and other software programs created by outside developers.