AI · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to I built an AI chief of staff to stop drowning in email and meetings
Hi HN, I built Merlin because I was overwhelmed trying to stay on top of email, meetings, and Slack while leading frontend at a fast-paced startup. I just wanted something that could help me figure out what actually mattered — and act on it, fast. Merlin connects to Gmail, Google Calendar, and Slack. It: • surfaces your highest-impact priorities (e.g. VIP emails, missed follow-ups, urgent meetings) • drafts replies in your voice • accepts or declines meetings based on context • builds your daily plan before you open your laptop You can interact with it like a chat assistant. Think of it as…
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 2 we have checked on their own sites, 2 of them free or with a free tier.
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Merlin 2.0▲307The only AI powered copilot for Chrome you'll ever need
2023 · getmerlin.in · its alternatives →
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LIAMfree tier▲111Hi HN, yesterday I missed a meeting and spent most of the day sending ~35 emails. That kind of inbox + calendar admin has been draining my time for a long while, so I built LIAM to fix it. It helps with: - Drafting replies in your tone (honestly a bit scary how close it gets) - Scheduling meetings and handling the back and forth - Prioritising important threads and organising the inbox Important: LIAM doesn’t send anything without approval. I’d love feedback on what you’d actually trust an email agent to do, and which email workflows you’d automate first. You are more than welcome to roast…
Feb 2026 · doitliam.com · its alternatives →
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Hey Noah▲656A proactive AI executive assistant for founders
Aug 2026 · heynoah.io · its alternatives →
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Manage your AI data infrastructure in a single conversation
Jun 2026 · encord.com · its alternatives →
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Chatfuel AI▲456Take customer communication to the next level
2023 · chatfuel.com · its alternatives →
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Ogment AI▲159Make your product accessible in ChatGPT & Claude, in minutes
Jul 2026 · ogment.ai · its alternatives →
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AI Emailyfree tier, from $14.99/mo▲165Your AI inbox that writes like you + replies on autopilot
Jul 2026 · aiemaily.com · its alternatives →
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Enhance Your Productivity: The Definitive AI Assistant
2024 · getmerlin.in · its alternatives →
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The first conversational AI built right into your IDE
2023 · replit.com · its alternatives →
- 15WM
Hey guys, We’re excited to introduce to you what we’ve been working on for the past few months. We are two co-founders and we’ve both experienced on-call shifts where we felt unprepared, the relevant people weren’t around to help or we were left in the middle of the night trying to figure out what went wrong. Merlinn is an open-source AI on-call developer that lives in Slack. It can help you alleviate some of the pains mentioned above by connecting to your favorite tools and pair with you to triage the incident. We also have a pro version that we host on our cloud. Our goal is to help…
2024 · merlinn.co · its alternatives →
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PAI▲9Hi HN! I've been spending the past month on PAI, a Linux-esque harness for a personal assistant AI for your Mac. Instead of giving a chatbot a bunch of tools, I wanted to just drop the LLM into a terminal and see how it'd fare. I've been using it to manage my calendar, 5+ email accounts, and engaging with / responding to people in a timely manner (casus belli for this entire project). After seeing how other always-on assistants were designed, I thought the Unix / Linux philosophy of system design could be applied to AI harnesses, and I wanted to experiment with how it'd hold up…
Jul 2026 · whitematterlabs.ai · its alternatives →
- 17MC
Hi HN! We are building [Merlin](https://www.usemerlin.io/), a GTM intelligence platform that gathers contextual insights about prospects and key stakeholders, so sellers don’t have to spend hours on tedious research tasks across hundreds of companies. Our thesis is that content generation and workflow/sequence automation providers are generating a lot of noise in social media (and inboxes) today and they are making the problem of outbound sales worse. We believe that every customer interaction (emails, cold calls or discovery calls) should be powered by intelligence. With…
2024 · usemerlin.io · its alternatives →
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Refinder AI▲77Turn your Slack & Google Chat into AI-Powered Assistant
Nov 2025 · refinder.ai · its alternatives →
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min.▲102I'm a control freak, the thought of having AI auto-replying to emails is ridiculous. Every founder I've met are the same way, just typing the words "Put your support/sales on auto-pilot" makes me cringe. I built min. to help me and my teammates with emails. Who should read it, who should reply, when to follow up, etc. min. is: - A simple email interface to manage both private and team inboxes. - An AI-native inbox that sorts and prioritizes messages into custom labels and folders. - A replacement for patchwork of CRMs, helpdesks, and spreadsheets with just… email. - Conversational…
Aug 2026 · getmin.ai · its alternatives →
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Persuwise▲81From endless email follow-ups to instant, genuine meetings!
2023 · persuwise.com · its alternatives →
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Hey everyone, I made this thing: https://tryflux.ai/. Here's a demo video: https://screen.studio/share/1y2EnC26 Context: I've tried probably 15 different AI apps over the past year. ChatGPT, note-taking apps, productivity apps, all of it. But most of them are just clutter on my iphone. They live in some app I have to deliberately open. And I just... don't. But you know what I open 50 times a day without thinking? iMessage. So out of mild frustration with the "AI app graveyard" on my phone, I built Flux. What it does: - You describe a personality and what…
Jan 2026 · tryflux.ai · its alternatives →
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Qordinate▲30Hey HN - founder here. I'm building Qordinate with a simple (big) idea: Most AI assistants talk to you. I want one that talks for you - one that can share, negotiate, and coordinate on my behalf with others. Reality: we're early. Today, Qordinate can: - send clean pings on your behalf (with your approval) - collect info/files via tiny forms and track replies - nudge people politely and close the loop with you - do basic actions via connectors (Gmail/Calendar/GitHub/Linear/Drive/Slack) - keep lightweight lists in chat (tasks, contacts, logs) Why I'm doing this…
May 2026 · qordinate.ai · its alternatives →
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →