Increasingly, AI assistants are reachable directly via SMS or popular messaging apps, so users don’t need to install separate applications. These agents can preserve context, connect to existing services (email, calendars, Slack, etc.), and perform tasks on behalf of users: scheduling, calendar management, trip planning, sending emails, making reservations, or setting reminders.
Below are the most notable services so far, from general personal assistants to family- and travel-focused agents.
Key services and features
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Ask Proxy: An SMS-based assistant the company says “thinks like a woman,” aiming to anticipate user needs. It helps with gift ideas, event planning, calendar entries and reminders, and can accept photos (for example, to suggest table decorations). There is a work-focused version intended to keep personal data off company systems. Personal pricing is $1 per day; business pricing starts at $15 per employee per month for large companies and $23 per employee per month for teams under 49 employees. It works over SMS (text “start” to 820-732-2625).
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Caddy: Lives in iMessage for iPhone and RCS for Android and turns scattered phone information into actionable items (adding events, reminders, follow-ups). It has been in public beta since April 2026.
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Comma: Designed for work and everyday tasks, it carries tasks through to completion, self-checks, and surfaces completed work for review when needed. Accessible across browsers, computers and files and via messaging apps like Signal, Telegram and WeChat. Comma is open source and free to start.
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Fambot: A "chief of staff" for families that aggregates school communications, sports, meal planning and calendars. It works via app and SMS; sends nightly summaries of the next day with events and to-dos. Launched in beta in early September 2026 and raised $3.5 million in pre-seed funding. Free during beta; the company expects to charge roughly the equivalent of a Netflix subscription later.
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Folk: Reachable through iMessage, WhatsApp and Telegram; remembers personal context, manages reminders, tracks flights and runs multi-step tasks on a private cloud computer. Beta launched in May 2026. Free with a Pro subscription available for $8.33/month to allow unlimited background tasks.
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Instinct: One of the highest-profile agents. After an earlier $350 million round at a $2.5 billion valuation, in September 2026 it raised $1 billion valuing it at $10 billion. Instinct can act on users’ behalf rather than just answer questions, accessible by text or voice and connectable to email, calendars and other services. Users have used it for trip planning, grocery shopping, booking tickets and cancelling subscriptions. In September, Instinct began issuing dedicated email addresses for assistants so the agent can sign up and manage accounts without using a user’s personal inbox, a move that raises privacy and security questions. The company has also begun rolling out call support. Instinct remains in private beta.
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Iris (Hermes Agent): Lets users delegate tasks via iMessage, connect apps and hand off jobs that the agent then completes while retaining relevant context. It also follows up proactively.
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Martin: A general-purpose assistant available via SMS, phone, WhatsApp, email, Slack and an iOS app. It helps manage calendars, email, reminders and daily summaries, and can send messages or make calls on a user’s behalf. Subscriptions start at $21 per month.
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Maverick: Describes itself as an "AI companion who lives in your texts," able to fix typos, cancel subscriptions, schedule meetings from voice notes and help groups pick event dates. It asks permission before taking actions and supports hundreds of integrations (Discord, Gmail, Slack). Currently in beta on iMessage; Pro costs €27/month (~$30.25) for 500 tasks, 20 connected apps, scheduled tasks and memory.
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Miso: Focused on travel; operates through iMessage and mixes AI trip planning with a human travel team. It books flights via messaging and factors in preferences and loyalty points, and provides trip details and flight updates.
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Ohai: Another family-focused assistant that converts messages, forwarded emails and voice requests into schedules, reminders and plans. It coordinates calendars, chores and meals across family members. There is a free basic tier and paid plans starting at $9.99/month.
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Ollie: Consolidates school messages, calendars and group chats for families and delivers relevant information via text. A key differentiator is SOC 2 compliance. Launched in June 2026, Ollie offers a free tier and paid plans starting at $25/month for 150 messages; $100/month allows up to 1,000 messages.
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Orbits: Household-focused assistant available in an app and via text. It can search the web, make purchases, book restaurants, change appointments and request quotes for household services, remind family members about chores and communicate with providers. Orbits is backed by investors including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Speedrun Fund, N49P and Garage Capital.
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Pally: A friend-like assistant that connects to WhatsApp, Gmail, calendars and Google Drive to track plans, receipts, dates and files. Free plan available; works over iMessage, RCS and Telegram.
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Poke: Launched in March 2026 as a general-purpose text assistant for calendars, planning, health and smart-home controls. Poke was approved by Apple in June 2026 as the first AI agent on the Apple Messages for Business platform; a month later, The Interaction Company of California (Poke’s parent) was acquired by AI coding startup Cognition in a deal reported at low nine figures.
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Rene: A text-based personal assistant that turns natural-language conversations into tasks, reminders and summaries, and maintains conversational context. It includes a browser, can write code, shop and create slides and images. Available on iMessage, Telegram and WhatsApp.
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Skye (Signull Labs): An "agentic homescreen" for iPhone that analyzes connected services and surfaces relevant information via contextual cards and daily briefings. Signull Labs raised about $3.6 million in seed funding in 2025; private testing and beta began in April 2026.
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Stanley: An AI content assistant for creators available on iMessage, Telegram and the web. It helps generate ideas, turn them into posts, repurpose voice notes into scripts and manage a content calendar to automate publishing.
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Szn: Coordinates tasks and follow-ups through a single conversation thread; can handle calls, send emails and manage follow-ups. The company says it has served more than 7,500 businesses across 16 countries, completed over 10,000 jobs and handled 95 hours of calls.
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Tab: Lets users delegate everyday tasks via familiar messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp (ordering groceries, finding gifts). The company emerged from stealth in early October with a $300 million valuation; investors include SV Angel, Valar Ventures and American Spirit.
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Tomo: Personal assistant for iMessage that can join group conversations and help with goals, scheduling and organization. Basic plan starts at $19.99 per month.
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Town: Targets professional workflows with "Townie" assistants that learn how users work and handle recurring tasks across email, calendars, documents and Slack. In June 2026 Town raised a $55 million Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz and Forerunner.
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Underdog: Privacy-focused assistant launched as an invite-only beta in early October 2026; unlike cloud-based services, the model runs entirely on the user’s device (initially Mac and Windows), keeping data on hardware users already own. The company said it plans to offer the app free initially and that it will never include advertising.
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Wajo / Fo: Wajo’s consumer agent Fo can call businesses, send emails, join group chats, make bookings and purchases, and coordinate with people to complete tasks. Fo has its own email address, phone number and payment card so it can interact with businesses without users sharing personal credentials. Wajo says it can bring in a human assistant when Fo cannot complete a task automatically. Fo launched publicly in September 2026 with a free tier and paid Pro options for heavier workloads.
Why it matters
These text-based agents show that AI assistants are moving into the communication channels people already use — SMS, iMessage, WhatsApp and others — reducing friction from installing and switching apps. Providers differ on proactivity, privacy models (cloud vs on-device), security posture (SOC 2 compliance) and monetization (free betas, subscriptions, enterprise pricing). Significant funding rounds and participation from major investors such as Andreessen Horowitz indicate rapid market interest.
At the same time, the ability of agents to sign up for accounts, send messages and act autonomously raises privacy and security concerns that will shape adoption and regulation going forward.
Summary
A broad and growing set of text-based AI assistants now compete across consumer and professional use cases. They vary by platform support, integrations, pricing and privacy approach; several have raised notable funding rounds while others emphasize on-device privacy or security certifications. The coming years will likely see continued technical development, more integrations and intensified debates over data protection and safe delegation of tasks.
