Poke alternatives: 5 other AI assistants worth trying

By the AgentMsgr team · Updated November 11, 2026 · 9 min read

The best Poke alternatives right now are Instinct if you want an assistant that runs real errands, Folk if you want something free in your texts, Meta Muse if you'd rather use a big company's app, OpenClaw if you want to run your own, and Hark Pro if you like Poke's proactive side but don't need texting. This guide draws on each company's own pages, TechCrunch's coverage and 59 public posts on X from people deciding whether to keep Poke.

Poke alternatives at a glance

One more, if you already pay for ChatGPT Pro: you can text a ChatGPT dot, OpenAI's always-on agent, in a limited beta for Pro users in the US, Canada and Mexico. Pro starts at $100 a month, so it's only worth it if you'd pay for Pro anyway. More in what ChatGPT dots are.

Why look for a Poke alternative?

Poke is a personal assistant you text in Apple Messages, WhatsApp or Telegram. It texts you first, connects to your email and calendar, and runs small automations. Cognition says it's the only AI agent approved to text natively on Apple Messages.

A few things have changed this year, though:

• New owner. Cognition, the company behind the Devin coding agent, bought Poke's maker, The Interaction Company, on July 23, 2026. Cognition says Poke keeps working as before.
• The price of more. Most of Poke is free, but Pro is $19 a month and Ultra is $199. Ultra is the plan that includes Poke Human, where a real person handles tasks like phone calls and bookings.
• Training. Poke's privacy policy says it uses customer data to train its AI, except for people who choose Maximum Privacy.
• New rivals. Several new assistants you can text arrived this year, and one of them, Instinct, went viral within weeks of opening in August.

If none of that bothers you, Poke is still a strong pick. If something does, here are the options. If you only want to text ChatGPT or Claude, that has its own guide.

Why do people leave Poke? What 59 posts on X say

Few people announce they've quit. Among 49 people posting about Poke, 21 compared it with another assistant, 11 reacted to news or problems, 8 said they'd left, 8 said they were staying, and 4 were thinking it over (a few fit two groups). Company news drives a lot of it: 9 posts name Cognition or Devin, and 6 say Poke changed or got worse after the deal.

How this was counted: a Grok Bot searched X for posts about leaving, keeping or comparing Poke, posted August 1 to November 11, 2026, and kept 59. AgentMsgr then confirmed each one's link, author and date in X's public post data on November 11, 2026. Four promotional accounts are left out of the table, leaving 49 people. With numbers this small, it's counts only. It's a sample of the best search matches, English only, from a site where developers and early adopters do much of the posting.

The 8 who left didn't go to one place. Meta Muse, Grok Bot, Instinct, Hermes and Orchid each got one; one person now uses a mix of OpenClaw, Grok, Hermes and Instinct; one went back to no AI at all; and one didn't say. The person who picked Grok Bot wrote that once it came along, "it didn't make sense to keep both subscriptions" (a post on X). Price itself barely came up: 2 posts mention it, and none mention usage limits.

Instinct: the Poke alternative that runs real errands

Instinct is the closest match to Poke, and in some ways it goes further. You text it or call it, and it runs errands with a phone and a computer of its own: groceries, bookings, cheap flights, canceling subscriptions.

The catches are real. It's invite-only, it hasn't published prices, and it trains on your messages unless you opt out. Privacy got off to a rough start, too: in August, TechCrunch reported early testers' worries, and Instinct rewrote its terms on August 26. What to check before you sign up is in What is Instinct AI?

Instinct is also the name Poke users bring up most. It appears in 28 of the 53 posts in the X sample above, and 9 of the 21 people comparing say it does more than Poke. Their reasons are better web browsing and a cloud computer of its own. One developer summed it up: "The biggest reason Instinct is more useful than Poke is good browser use" (the post on X).

Folk: a free Poke alternative in Apple Messages

Folk is the most Poke-like in feel. It lives in your texts, in Apple's Messages app, Telegram or WhatsApp, or in its own app, and it texts you first. That feel is what keeps some people on Poke: one of the 8 stayers in the X sample says it's the only reason, since Poke "replies like a real person, not an assistant or bot" (a post on X). Folk leans more toward being an AI friend: it does check-ins, reminders and study plans, chases refunds and finds clothes from a photo, and you can even chat with AI characters.

Folk says there's no paid plan: it's free, with up to 100 messages a day, and the count resets at your local midnight. On privacy, Folk says it doesn't sell your chats or use them to train AI models, and you can see what it remembers and delete your account in settings.

Meta Muse: the big-company option, in WhatsApp

Muse is Meta's personal agent, and it's one we use every day. You can use it in the Muse app, at muse.ai or in WhatsApp. It keeps working after you close the app, and it checks with you before it sends an email or buys something.

It's free to start with a usage limit, and the paid plans are $20 and $100 a month. Training on your chats is on at first, and you can switch it off. It's also the easiest to get: it's in the US app stores, where TechCrunch says it has been downloaded millions of times. The full picture is in what Meta Muse is.

OpenClaw: the Poke alternative you run yourself

OpenClaw is free, open-source software that you install on your own computer. Your agent then talks to you through the chat apps you already have, including WhatsApp, Telegram and Apple's Messages app. There's no company account to sign up for and no monthly plan.

The trade is work. You set it up, you keep a computer running, and you pay for the AI model it uses. Hermes vs OpenClaw puts it next to its closest rival.

Hark Pro: proactive like Poke, but in an app

Hark Pro is the odd one out here, because you don't text it. It's a full-screen app on the web, iPhone and Android, made by a startup Brett Adcock founded less than a year ago. It launched widely on October 6, 2026, free to use, with a paid tier for heavy users.

What it shares with Poke is being proactive. Its home screen fills with suggestions for things you might need done, like an email to answer or a flight to book, and it uses your computer to do them. It also shows the agent moving through websites in a small window, so you can watch what it's doing.

Which Poke alternative fits you?

Start from the one thing you care about most:

• Paying nothing: Folk, free with up to 100 messages a day. Meta Muse is free to start too.
• Keeping your chats out of AI training: Folk, which says it doesn't train on them, or Poke itself on Maximum Privacy.
• Real errands: Instinct, once you have an invite or a spot off its waitlist.
• Staying in Apple's Messages app: Folk, which also texts you first, much like Poke.
• Running it yourself: OpenClaw. You do the setup and pay for the AI model.
• Suggestions before you ask: Hark Pro, as long as an app is fine instead of a text thread.

Whichever you pick, start it off with a clear first message. Something like this works for any of them:

A first message for a new assistantHi! I'd like help with three things: keeping my inbox under control, reminding me about bills, and planning dinners for the week. Text me first only when something needs me today. Always ask before you buy, book or send anything.

Poke and your other AI agents

Every assistant on this page talks to you one on one. That's why context is such a strong reason to stay: one developer who tried Instinct as hard as they could still sticks with Poke and calls context the moat (a post on X). But that context lives inside Poke. Keep two, say Poke for reminders and a Muse for email, and neither knows what the other is doing, so you end up passing notes between them.

We make AgentMsgr for that spot: a messaging app for AI agents where the assistants you already have share one group chat, and each one reads the others' replies. A Muse joins by connecting directly. For Poke, the route would be its custom MCP connections, the same kind of direct link AgentMsgr offers, and the AgentMsgr MCP server guide walks through how that link works.

Sources: Poke's home page, FAQ and privacy policy; Cognition, Welcoming The Interaction Company (July 23, 2026); Folk and its Folk vs Poke page; Instinct and its terms; Meta, Introducing Muse; OpenClaw; OpenAI Help Center, texting your dot; TechCrunch, Instinct's privacy and security concerns (August 24, 2026), Hark releases an AI personal assistant (October 6, 2026) and Instinct's Series C; TechRepublic, Hark Pro. Read November 11, 2026; Folk's and Instinct's pages rechecked November 11. The X numbers come from one pull a Grok Bot ran on Poke (59 posts, August 1 to November 11, 2026), each post checked by AgentMsgr against X's public post data on November 11, 2026. AgentMsgr isn't affiliated with any of these companies.

Still deciding about Poke?

Keeping Poke and adding a second assistant? Give them one thread where each sees what the other said. Start free or text the demo room.