Is Poke an OpenClaw accessible to all of us? That’s the concept being introduced by a new startup that provides an AI agent available through iMessage, SMS, Telegram, and, in select regions, WhatsApp.
The AI agent Poke was publicly released in March, enabling users to engage with a personal assistant that can execute tasks on their behalf using a familiar interface. At present, Poke can assist with daily requirements such as planning your day, managing your calendar, monitoring your health and fitness, controlling your smart home, editing images, and much more, all through text messaging.
While you might still engage with a general-purpose AI chatbot like ChatGPT or Claude for inquiries or research, you would turn to Poke when you need to accomplish something swiftly, or wish to automate a task for efficiency.
For example, you could request Poke to notify you of specific emails (such as those from family or your supervisor), or remind you in the morning if you should carry an umbrella. It could assist you in monitoring your health and fitness objectives, or inform you about the latest game scores. Poke could send reminders for daily medications or catch you up on current events, and more, as users can create their own automations in simple text and share them with others.
Supported by Spark Capital, General Catalyst, and various angel investors, the 10-person startup has recently secured an additional $10 million, adding to last year’s $15 million seed funding. It is now valued at $300 million, after investment.
This tool arrives amidst a surge in demand for agentic AI systems, prompting OpenAI to acquire OpenClaw’s developer, while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang cautioned that every enterprise should develop its own OpenClaw strategy when unveiling Nvidia’s enterprise-grade alternative.
However, for those less tech-savvy, the idea of installing software via command line, handling dependencies, and resolving errors can seem overwhelming. Additionally, systems like OpenClaw pose security risks due to their extensive system access.
Consequently, many find that OpenClaw and similar agentic systems appear inaccessible. The team behind Poke aims to alter that perception.
Marvin von Hagen, co-founder of The Interaction Company of California, the Palo Alto-based startup behind the AI agent, informs TechCrunch that Poke originated from observing how beta testers interacted with the company’s previous product, an AI assistant designed for email, crafted around a year prior.
“What we observed was that people desired to utilize Poke for numerous tasks… Even though it was initially intended for email only, users began requesting Poke to remind them to take their medications. They inquired about sports scores — ‘Hey Poke, tell me every morning if I need a jacket or not,’” von Hagen clarifies. “At that moment, we lacked many of these features, but we recognized the need to evolve into a more versatile tool rapidly, as users appreciated the personality and relatability of it.”
The team then shifted its focus to enhancing Poke’s utility, proactivity, and personable qualities.
In contrast to OpenClaw, starting with Poke is straightforward. Simply head to Poke.com, click “Get Started,” and input your phone number. There’s no application to download since the assistant functions through text messages.
Internally, Poke selects the AI model that is best suited for the task, whether it is from one of the major AI providers or an open-source model.
“I believe this is one of our primary advantages moving forward: nearly all of our rivals are large tech firms and labs tied to specific providers. For instance, Meta AI will only utilize Meta’s models, and ChatGPT will solely use OpenAI’s models,” von Hagen emphasizes.
To function over messaging platforms like iMessage, Poke also utilizes Linq, a solution that facilitates AI assistants to operate within messaging applications. The app can also be accessed through SMS and Telegram, though WhatsApp support is limited at this time due to Meta prohibiting other general-purpose chatbots since last autumn.
However, this may change. Regulators from the EU, Italy, and Brazil have initiated antitrust investigations to counter this decision, which has prompted Poke’s return to Brazil. It is hoped this will enable Poke to function on WhatsApp in the EU once Meta reduces its fees. (Meta has faced criticism regarding the exorbitant fees it imposes — von Hagen describes it as a form of “malicious compliance” that he believes will be resolved soon.)
Upon launch, Poke provides several “recipes” — these are pre-configured tools that assist in automating different areas of your life or work. These recipes cover aspects such as health and wellness, productivity, finance, scheduling, travel, home, education, email, community, and for those with technical skills, developer tools. Installing them is as easy as clicking a button followed by a customary authorization process, if necessary.
These recipes are crafted to integrate seamlessly with familiar apps and services like Gmail, Google Calendar, Outlook, Notion, Linear, Granola, among others. There are also health and fitness “recipes” compatible with Strava, Withings, Oura, Fitbit, etc., along with options for smart home devices from brands like Philips Hue and Sonos.
Developers using Poke can automate workflows using integrations with tools such as PostHog, Webflow, Supabase, Vercel, Devin, Sentry, GitHub, Cursor Cloud Agents, and others.
Poke’s security framework is multi-faceted, incorporating regular penetration testing, security audits, a variety of tools, and permission limitations for both agents and human operatives. By default, the team cannot access anything within the tokens unless the user voluntarily opts to grant access to a log file or analytics through settings to share this data. (TechCrunch has not conducted an independent security audit, for clarity.)
In recent weeks, Poke users have generated thousands of additional recipes and automations, which the company intends to incorporate into its recipes directory for easier discovery soon. They are also motivating creators to develop these shareable recipes by offering to compensate anywhere from 10 cents to a dollar (depending on location) for each user registering for Poke via the recipe.
Utilizing Poke is surprisingly economical: it’s free to begin, followed by flexible pricing. During the beta phase, users actually negotiated the monthly fee with the AI agent, which varied between $10-$30 — as Poke indicated in response to this inquiry.
Von Hagen mentions that, currently, pricing is contingent on how the AI agent is utilized. If you are requesting information that doesn’t necessitate real-time data, you could likely use Poke for free. Poke incurs costs from real-time inference, such as automations that trigger with every incoming email or during real-time flight check-ins. To establish pricing, the company has guided Poke on the costliness of various tasks, enabling it to provide tailored pricing.
While the company has successfully optimized Poke’s efficiency to minimize expenses, the primary focus at this time isn’t on profitability, notes von Hagen.
“Our primary goal is not to make profits, but to achieve growth. We aspire to create a product for one billion individuals, with monetization being a secondary concern,” he states. “In the upcoming weeks and months, our aim is to integrate Poke into daily life.” To accomplish this, they will rely on creators and influencers to demonstrate how they utilize Poke.
The company, co-founded by Felix Schlegel, has not disclosed the number of customers who have joined, only mentioning that the count has multiplied by 10 over the last few months. (However, Poke was noticed at the top of Vercel’s AI Gateway leaderboard, which is noteworthy.)
Alongside its main institutional backers, Spark Capital and General Catalyst, the startup has garnered attention from several angel investors, including John and Patrick Collison (founders of Stripe), Jake and Logan Paul, Logan Kilpatrick from DeepMind, Joanne Jang of OpenAI, and Scott Wu and Walden Yan (founders of Cognition).
Moreover, it has involved Vercel co-founder Guillermo Rauch, PayPal co-founder Ken Howery, Dropbox co-founder Arash Ferdowsi, Mercor co-founder Brendan Foody, Hugging Face co-founder Thomas Wolf, Flapping Airplanes co-founder Ben Spector, among others.