AI Agents You Can Text: 8 Assistants That Live in Your Messages
The newest wave of AI assistants doesn't ask you to download anything or open a new tab. You add a contact, send a text, and the agent books the table, sorts the calendar or chases down the details for you inside iMessage, WhatsApp or plain SMS. TechCrunch published a roundup of more than 20 of these agents on October 24, and the list is a good snapshot of where personal AI is heading right now. We pulled out the 8 that stand out most for everyday use, with extra attention on the ones that can work inside a group chat.
Why AI agents are moving into your texts
Texting is the one app almost everyone already checks dozens of times a day, so putting an assistant there removes most of the friction that keeps people from using AI at all. You don't have to remember a new interface, and the agent can reach out to you first with a reminder or a follow-up instead of waiting for you to open something. If you want the background on what makes an AI tool an agent, our guide to what AI agents can actually do in 2026 covers the basics, and our explainer on what agentic AI means goes a level deeper.
The trade-off is trust. An assistant that lives in your messages often wants access to your calendar, your email and sometimes your accounts, so the details on permissions and pricing below are worth reading before you hand anything over.
8 AI agents you can text right now
All of the details here come from TechCrunch's October 24 roundup unless we link another source, and prices and features in this category change quickly, so check each service's own site before you sign up.
1. Tomo
Tomo is a personal assistant that runs in iMessage and, according to TechCrunch, can join group conversations, which makes it one of the few on this list built for more than one person. Its basic plan starts at $19.99 a month, so it's aimed at people who plan to use it every day.
2. Fo by Wajo
Wajo's agent, Fo, gets its own email address, phone number and payment card, and it can bring in a human when a task needs one. TechCrunch notes it can join group chats as well, and it has a free tier with a paid Pro plan on top. Fo launched publicly in September 2026.
3. Maverick
Maverick is an iMessage assistant that asks for your permission before it takes an action, which is a sensible default for anything connected to your accounts. It has hundreds of integrations, and one of the use cases TechCrunch calls out is helping a group chat pick dates for an event. The iMessage beta is free, and the Pro plan costs €27 a month.
4. Folk
Folk remembers context between conversations, handles reservations and can run tasks on a private cloud computer. You can reach it through iMessage, WhatsApp or Telegram, and it's free to start, with a Pro plan at $8.33 a month. It has been in beta since May 2026.
5. Caddy
Caddy takes the information scattered across your emails and texts and turns it into calendar events, reminders and follow-ups. It works over iMessage on iPhone and RCS on Android, and it has been in public beta since April 2026, which makes it one of the easier options if your friends are split between phone platforms.
6. Poke
Poke, from The Interaction Company of California, is a general assistant that covers calendars, smart home controls and more over text. It launched in March 2026, got approved for Apple Messages for Business in June, and was acquired by Cognition about a month later, according to TechCrunch. It's the best-known name on the list and a good benchmark for the rest.
7. Ollie
Ollie is a family assistant that syncs calendars, tasks and school messages over text, and TechCrunch notes it is SOC 2 compliant. It has a free tier, then $25 a month for 150 messages or $100 a month for 1,000 messages. If you run a busy household calendar, it's one of the more specialized picks here.
8. Ask Proxy
Ask Proxy works over plain SMS, so you can try it by texting "start" to the number listed in TechCrunch's roundup without installing anything. The personal version costs $1 a day, and there's a separate business version priced per employee each month.
What to look for before you add an agent to your contacts
Start with permissions, because the most useful agents are also the ones asking for the most access. Maverick's ask-first approach is a good model, and you should be comfortable with what an agent can do on its own before you connect your email or a payment card. Pricing is the next thing to watch, since several of these charge per day or per message, and costs can add up quickly if the agent is chatty.
Group support is the last piece, and it matters more than it seems. Most of these assistants are built for one person, so if you mostly want help in a shared thread, Tomo, Fo and Maverick are the ones TechCrunch says can work with a group. Planning is where they shine, and our guide on how to plan a group trip with AI shows how much smoother a weekend gets when something keeps track of dates, budgets and bookings for everyone.
Where AI fits in a group chat
A personal assistant in your texts and AI built into a group chat solve slightly different problems. The first handles your own errands, while the second helps a whole group stay organized, settle a trivia debate or summarize what you missed overnight. We covered the second kind in our look at AI features in group chats, including fact-checking and summaries that help when a thread gets busy.
If you want to compare notes with people already testing these agents, the AI Tribe on Tribe is a good place to start. It's an easy place to ask which assistants people have kept, which ones they cancelled after a week, and which setups made them worth paying for, and our list of the best group chats for AI enthusiasts has more places to find people who follow this closely.
