If you like texting an assistant but want a different channel or a work slant, a hosted text-based assistant or a self-run open-source one is the closest swap. If most of your day is email, an inbox assistant that drafts replies for you to approve will serve you better than anything you message from your phone.
Poke's idea is simple: you text it like a friend, and it gets on with things in the apps you've connected, such as Gmail, Notion and Oura. It works through Messages, WhatsApp or Telegram, and its own site now says it's joining Cognition, which is reason enough for some people to look at what else is out there.
Two questions sort every alternative faster than any feature list. Where do you want the conversation to happen, and how far do you trust the thing to act before it checks with you?
Where the conversation happens
This is the fork people skip, and it's the one that decides whether you'll still be using the assistant in a month. Each channel suits a different kind of day.
- Texts and chat apps. Good if you're away from a desk, think in quick bursts and want to fire off "move my 3pm" from a queue. The catch: long email threads are awkward to review on a phone, so you end up trusting summaries.
- Your inbox. If email is where the work lands, an assistant that sorts and drafts inside Gmail or Outlook saves you switching anywhere. You see every reply before it goes, in the place you'd have written it anyway.
- Slack, Teams or a separate app. Teams who already talk in Slack or Teams can message an agent like a colleague. A stand-alone app suits people who want email, to-dos and reminders gathered into one calm place rather than spread across messages.
Picture a consultant who's on trains half the week. Texting suits her. Now picture an account manager with two hundred client emails a day: he needs the drafts in front of him, in the inbox, where he can fix tone before anything's sent.
Assistants you text or message
Lindy
Pitched as an AI employee rather than a helper, it covers inbox, calendar, leads and follow-ups, and you can text it over iMessage.
Martin
For people who want a personal agent in their texts: it sends messages, reschedules calls and drafts or labels email on request.
alfred_
Client-facing teams use this one to track what's waiting on them across email, calendar and Slack, reachable over iMessage.
OpenClaw
If you'd rather run it yourself, this open-source assistant sits on your own machine and answers from WhatsApp, Telegram or other chat apps.
Tasklet
An agent builder for teams, where the agents you set up are messaged like coworkers in Slack, Teams, email or text.
Assistants that work from your inbox or their own app
Fyxer
Spanning email, calendar and meetings, it sorts the inbox, writes draft replies and takes meeting notes.
Jace
An email agent for Gmail and Outlook that drafts replies in your voice and files mail under labels.
Shortwave
This is a full email client with an AI agent built in, so you organise, schedule, write and search mail from a prompt.
Saner.AI
Built with ADHD in mind, it pulls emails, notes and to-dos together and searches, schedules or creates things when you ask.
How much it's allowed to do on its own
Here's where assistants split most sharply. Some act: you say "reschedule Thursday" and the invite moves. Others draft: they prepare the reply or the change and wait for your nod. Jace, for instance, says it drafts replies in your voice for you to review.
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Acting assistants feel magic until one sends a slightly wrong email to a client. Drafting assistants feel slower but they rarely embarrass you. My view: start anything new on approval for everything that leaves your account, and loosen it only for jobs where a mistake costs nothing, like labelling mail or blocking out time on your own calendar.
You can test this in an hour. Connect a trial to a secondary calendar and a quiet email address, then give it five real jobs you'd normally do yourself:
- Move a meeting and tell the other person why.
- Reply to a supplier asking for an invoice, in your usual tone.
- Find the last message from a named contact and summarise what they wanted.
- Set a reminder for a date written loosely, such as "the Friday after next".
- Decline an invitation politely without giving a reason.
Watch two things: whether it asked before sending, and whether the wording sounds like you. If it fails the tone test on the supplier email, it'll fail it with clients too.
What access you're handing over
Every assistant on this page needs the keys to something personal. At minimum that's your email and calendar; for some it's Slack, your notes app or a health tracker too. Read the connection screen before you click allow, and notice whether it asks to send mail as you or only to read and draft.
- Hosted assistants keep your connected accounts on the vendor's service. That's the easy route, and it's fine for most people, but it means trusting their security and their future, which matters when a company is being bought.
- Self-run assistants keep things on your own machine. You trade convenience for control: you're the one keeping it running and up to date.
- Team assistants often see shared channels and client threads. Check who in the team can ask it to act, not only who set it up.
A good habit: connect one account first, live with it for a week, then add the next. If you'd be uncomfortable reading the assistant's access list out to a client, cut it back.
What these assistants cost
Three pricing models show up. Flat monthly tiers are the simplest, and Poke itself tiers its plans by model quality and rate limits. Credit bundles are common too, with Lindy and Tasklet both selling monthly credits rather than unlimited use, so heavy weeks can mean topping up. Per-seat pricing turns up on business plans, which is what a team should budget against.
For the assistants with a public price, paid plans run from roughly fifteen to roughly fifty dollars a month, with yearly billing often a little cheaper. Fyxer's and OpenClaw's pages gave no price when checked.
Credits are the model to think hardest about. Before you commit, ask the vendor what a single task costs in credits, then multiply by how often you'd realistically text it in a busy week.
Do you make AI assistants people text, message or email? Tool makers can ask to be considered for a featured place on this list.
If your heaviest load is email, the wider guide to the best AI email assistants goes deeper on inbox tools, and anyone weighing a credit-based AI employee can compare other AI employee tools side by side.
Which type to pick
- You loved texting Poke and want the same feel: a hosted assistant you reach over iMessage or WhatsApp.
- You want that feel without a vendor holding your accounts: an open-source assistant you run on your own machine, if you're happy to maintain it.
- Email is most of your job: an inbox assistant that drafts for approval, or an email client with an agent built in if you're ready to switch clients.
- You're a team, not a person: an agent builder your colleagues message in Slack or Teams, priced per seat or by credits.
- You want calm more than speed: a stand-alone app that gathers email, to-dos and reminders in one place.
For something closer to a full human-style assistant across your whole working day, see the best AI executive assistants. Otherwise, pick the channel first, run the one-hour test, and keep it on approval until it's earned your trust.
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