A growing number of AI assistants skip the standalone app entirely: users just message them like a contact. TechCrunch put together an overview of these services, from general-purpose helpers to agents built for families, travel and work.

The idea is much the same across the board: the agent remembers the conversation, connects to the user's email, calendar and other services, and sees the task through. That might be booking a doctor's appointment, reserving a table, buying something online or sending a reminder a few days later.

Who made the list

The most prominent name here is Instinct: in September 2026 the startup raised $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation. The agent takes requests by text and voice and recently gained its own email addresses, so it can sign up for services and write to businesses without cluttering the owner's personal inbox. That level of autonomy is already raising privacy questions.

The roundup also covers Ask Proxy, Caddy, Folk, Martin, Maverick, Pally, Rene and others. A separate group of services, such as Fambot, Ohai, Ollie and Orbits, targets families, pulling school emails, activities, meal plans and a shared calendar into one plan.

Which channels they use

Some agents run over plain SMS, others over iMessage and RCS. Comma, Folk and Pally are available in Telegram, while Martin also answers in WhatsApp, Slack and by phone. In June 2026 Poke became the first AI agent Apple allowed on Apple Messages for Business, and its developer was later acquired by Cognition.

Some services go beyond chat. Folk runs on its own cloud computer and can execute code, while Comma works with the user's browser and files and is open source. Maverick takes the opposite approach and asks for permission before it acts.

What it costs

Pricing varies widely. Ask Proxy charges $1 a day, Folk has a Pro plan at $8.33 a month, Martin starts at $21 a month, and Ollie's paid plans begin at $25 a month for 150 messages. Many of the services are still in beta and free for now.

Commentary

Chat remains the most familiar interface: people don't have to install yet another app or learn a new menu. For bot developers this is a useful signal, as demand shifts from simple question answering to agents that keep context and take actions through third-party APIs. Confirmation before important actions and careful handling of access to email and payments are becoming a core part of the product rather than an extra.

Source: TechCrunch.