AI executive assistants in September 2026: what each one does, costs and remembers

Most lists of AI executive assistants were written before this summer, and the summer changed the field: Town raised $55M in June, Poke added an Ultra tier and joined Cognition, Hey Noah launched in August, Lindy relaunched as a Slack teammate, Instinct raised $250M two days after a privacy story, and Catch came out of stealth on 3 September. This page compares ten of them on four things a client-facing professional needs to know before paying: where it lives, what it does on your behalf, what it costs — in one dated table — and what it remembers about you and whether you can see it. Every claim about another product was read from that vendor's own pages on 2026-09-08.

The shortlist

Start here if you read nothing else: ten assistants, one line each, each suited to something the others aren't.

1. Catch — best for a leader who wants admin done end to end — scheduling, travel, calls, inbox — from an assistant that says it asks before it acts, on one flat plan.
2. Hey Noah — best for scheduling by CC: it books the meeting, chases the reply and makes the phone call, and by its own account sees only the threads you copy it on.
3. Town — best if you want an assistant with its own email address that learns from your connected accounts and keeps a wiki of what it knows that you can read and edit.
4. Poke — best for a free, texting-first assistant on your connected Gmail or Outlook, with real people taking over on its Ultra tier.
5. Lindy — best for a team that wants one AI teammate in Slack; sold today as "an AI teammate that lives in your company's Slack" and priced per user.
6. Instinct — best for someone who wants the agent with the deepest reach — phone, screen, audio, location — and can get an invitation; read the documented privacy record before you do.
7. Martin — best for a low-cost personal assistant that texts, calls and lives in an iPhone app.
8. Del — best for everyday-life admin over iMessage — marketplace sales, refunds, reservations — with saved cards and bank connections so it can pay.
9. Microsoft Scout — best if your firm is in Microsoft's Frontier preview and you want a desktop agent inside Microsoft 365 with memories you can review and delete.
10. Equerry — the one to choose if you want an assistant that knows only what you handed it — a CC'd thread, a PDF, a voice memo, a note — briefs you before the call, and shows where an answer came from when it draws on your notes, emails or the web. Available on the App Store for iPhone and iPad.

No single entry tops every column. What the list does show is three shapes: agents that act for you from the accounts you connect — they book, call, send and pay (1–4, 6–8); agents built for a team's workspace or desktop (5, 9); and one built around material you choose item by item (10). Decide the shape first; the ranking follows.

How this list was judged

Four columns, in the terms a client-facing professional would use when replacing the coordinating half of an assistant's job. Writing quality is not scored — every product here can draft an email.

• Where it lives. Your texts, your email, Slack, a desktop app, a phone app.
• What it does on your behalf. Does it send, book, call and pay, or brief and answer? Does it ask first?
• Plan structure. Free tier or not, per-user or per-team, trial length — with every price in one table further down, dated the day it was read, and no plan price anywhere else on the page.
• What it remembers, and whether you can see it. The column most lists skip. Every product says it learns you; the question is whether you can read the record, correct it, delete one thing — and how it was built.

This page is for someone choosing a tool, not hiring a person; the salary and fractional rates are in our guide to what an executive assistant costs. On evidence: each entry was written from the vendor's own site, docs, pricing page, FAQ and privacy policy as they read on 2026-09-08, quoted where the wording matters, with press used only for funding, launch dates and one set of tester reports. Where a vendor's pages say nothing on a point, we say so — silence is not a denial. The vendor's page is the authority, not this one.

1. Catch — admin done end to end, if you can get a seat

What it does. Catch came out of stealth on 3 September 2026 with a $5 million seed round co-led by Entrée Capital and Pitango, with Seedcamp and Factorial Capital participating; it is based in Tel Aviv, founded by Nir Sabato and Yoav Ramon (Tech Startups, 2026-09-03). Its homepage calls it "Your AI assistant for email, scheduling, travel, and calls" — "Your admin savior." Its tool list is the widest of the messaging-surface agents here: Gmail, Outlook, Google Calendar, Slack, WhatsApp, iMessage, phone, Zoom and Google Meet, plus task, CRM and meeting-notes tools from Notion and HubSpot to Fireflies, Fathom and Granola. The work is the classic EA list: schedule and resolve conflicts, book flights and hotels, draft and follow up, make phone calls, fill out forms. The pages we read describe no app of Catch's own.

How it behaves. The line Catch leads with is the one that matters here: "Catch acts only with the right context and permission. When unsure, it asks, never guesses." Its security page answers "Does Catch send emails automatically?" with "Catch only performs actions within the permissions you grant and with your approval," and lists SOC 2 Type II.

What it remembers, and whether you can see it. "No two execs are alike. Catch adapts to your rhythm, priorities, and preferences." The launch coverage puts it as "The system builds a profile around how an executive works." The pages do not describe any place to read that profile, correct it or delete one thing it has learned; the security page offers the account-level version — "Users may revoke access or request deletion at any time" — and "Data is retained only as long as necessary to support workflows." On how the data is used, its security FAQ says, in full: "Our AI vendors process your data solely to handle your requests and are contractually prohibited from retaining or training on it. Catch uses your data to continuously improve the experience for you and others — but it is never shared with third parties for their benefit."

Where it falls short for this job. Access: the homepage labels sign-up as closed with "Limited Spots" and invites you to "Check if a spot is available for you," so you may be waiting. The connection is to your whole mailbox and calendar — that is how it can act — a larger decision than the one you were making if your inbox holds confidential client threads. And the record of what it has learned about you is not one you can open.

Pick it if you want the doing half of an EA's job covered as completely as software currently covers it, on a single plan priced for executives (see the table), and you are comfortable handing over the accounts.

2. Hey Noah — scheduling by CC, and it makes the call

What it does. Hey Noah launched on Product Hunt in early August 2026 and describes itself in its FAQ as "an AI executive assistant that works in the channels you already use: SMS, email, WhatsApp, and Slack" — "No app to download, no dashboard to log into" — aimed at "executives, founders, and senior professionals." Scheduling is the depth: it "connects to your Google Calendar with real-time access to your schedule," but "doesn't just look at open slots" — it weighs "your priorities, preferences (meeting times, buffers, focus blocks), and the relative importance of what's being scheduled," proposes times, "handles the back-and-forth, and books the meeting," and negotiates multi-person meetings until everyone confirms. It also phones — a reservation, an appointment, "following up with a contact who hasn't responded" — and "texts you the confirmation."

How it handles your email. This sets it apart from most of the list. "Noah drafts and sends emails from its own account on your behalf, written in your voice," and — twice, in two answers — "Noah only has access to the emails you've CC'd Noah on" and "Noah does not have access to your email inbox. Noah only sees the emails you CC it on or send to it directly." One caution: the same FAQ's integrations list names "Gmail (send and read emails on your behalf)," so check which applies to the setup you are offered. On mistakes: "For complex scenarios like multi-party emails, Noah uses a human-in-the-loop system where you can review before anything goes out"; quick scheduling, calendar updates and auto-replies "are handled automatically."

What it remembers, and whether you can see it. The FAQ says Noah can "remember key details about your relationships, and surface the right context at the right time." The pages we read describe no list of those details to read, edit or delete; the control offered is account-level — "You can disconnect your accounts at any time through your account settings."

Where it falls short for this job. By its own list it "does not currently handle" travel booking, "financial transactions, legal, HR, or medical tasks," or more than one Google Calendar. Access is gated — the homepage greets you with "Noah is reserved for select executives. Enter your work email to see if you qualify." And it is not built to remember the substance of your client work — the PDF, the memo, what was agreed — only the relationships and logistics around it.

Pick it if scheduling and follow-up chasing are what you would hand an assistant first, and you like that its view of your mail is the threads you chose to copy it on.

3. Town — an assistant with its own address, and a wiki about you

What it does. Town announced a $55 million Series A on 3 June 2026 "led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Forerunner Ventures and continued support from First Round Capital, Alt Capital, and Conviction," describing its product as one that "acts more like a chief of staff than a chatbot, learning how users work across email, calendar, Slack, docs, messaging and more without prompting or complex setup" (Town's own release; founders Jean-Denis Greze, formerly of Plaid, and Tony Vincent, formerly of Google AI). The homepage headline today is "Learns how you work, then gets to work." Everyone gets a "Townie" with its own address — bud@town.com is the example — reached by email, web app, iPhone app, macOS app, Slack and text messages; WhatsApp and Telegram are "Inbound-only." Its stock routines are the EA's day: an "Auto-inbox" that "drafts responses when a reply is clearly warranted, and helps with scheduling," a "Meeting Briefing" and a "Morning Briefing." On control, the docs home says under "You're always in control": "Nothing sends without your OK. Review suggested actions, see everything your assistant does, and adjust at any time," with an approval mode ("Review actions before they execute"), a read-only mode ("Let routines analyze without making changes") and per-tool controls ("Set different approval levels for different actions").

What it remembers, and whether you can see it. Town has the fullest answer on this list. Its docs: "Your Townie keeps a single, easy-to-read view of what it knows about you" — who you are, your preferences, notes on people — and "You can look at it anytime to see what your Townie knows, and you're always in control — you can add, change, or remove anything in it whenever you like." The Wiki is "one place to see everything your Townie has come to understand about you," "a living synthesis, refreshed every night"; "Select any line to edit it, drop a comment, or rewrite a whole section." How it is built is the other half: "To learn who you are, your Townie reads sent emails across your connected accounts and builds one shared profile of your style and preferences."

Where it falls short for this job. The unit of sharing is the account: Gmail access is "Read, search, and manage your inbox, including drafting and sending emails," and the profile is built by reading your sent mail. The record you can edit is a synthesis about you — style, priorities, people — not an itemised archive of what a client said in a particular thread with a link back to it. Automatic meeting briefings start at the Pro tier (see the table).

Pick it if you want an assistant that reads and works your inbox with approvals, and you value being able to open and edit what it has concluded about you.

4. Poke — free, texting-first, with people on the top tier

What it does. Poke is the assistant in your messages: its docs list Apple Messages, Telegram, WhatsApp and RCS (read 2026-09-04), and poke.com documents no iPhone app. It works from the accounts you connect — "Poke offers full support for Gmail and Outlook inboxes, calendars, and contact sync" — and the free plan includes "Connect to your email & calendar." Its release notes date the year: Apple Messages on 4 June, an @poke.com address on 8 June, Poke Ultra on 18 June, and on 25 June "Poke Human," which "dispatches real-world tasks to a real person on your behalf. Restaurant reservations, phone calls, placing orders, booking rides," "included with Poke Ultra." On 23 July: "The Interaction Company of California, the makers of Poke, is joining Cognition, the makers of Devin" — the most recent entry as of 2026-09-08. A Poke-Team "Morning Briefing" recipe (18 March 2026) gives a daily summary of calendar, top emails and priorities from the connected accounts.

What it remembers, and whether you can see it. Poke's vocabulary includes memory — its FAQ reassures that human operators "cannot access your chat history, memories, or integrations" — but its docs, FAQ, release notes and privacy policy describe no list of those memories to read, edit or delete. Its privacy policy (last updated 23 June 2026): "We may not be able to modify or delete your personal data in all circumstances." Account deletion is documented.

Where it falls short for this job. The surface is texting, which is not where a client engagement lives; the reach is the whole connected inbox; the record is not one you can inspect. Since July it is a product inside a developer-tools company — both sides say it "works exactly as before," and the release notes have been quiet since.

Pick it if you want a capable free assistant in iMessage or WhatsApp on top of a connected Gmail or Outlook, and the errands you would hand off are everyday ones.

5. Lindy — now a teammate for your Slack

What changed. If you have seen Lindy on a list of personal assistants, note that the product changed on 10 August 2026, when Lindy launched Lindy Teammate — "an AI employee that joins your company's Slack" in same-day coverage (The Cognitive Revolution, 2026-08-10). Lindy's own release of 4 September 2026 is titled "Lindy Provides an AI Assistant for Professionals That Works From Slack and Connects to More Than 1,000 Tools" and adds that it can be "reached over iMessage." The homepage today reads "The AI teammate that will 3x your output," and its FAQ answers "What is Lindy Teammate?" with "It's an AI teammate that lives in your company's Slack. Everyone gets a private assistant in their DMs, and the whole team shares one in channels." On where it lives: "Whether it's Slack, iMessage, or in your browser, Lindy is ready to pitch in." It joins Google Meet, Zoom and Teams calls as "a named participant everyone can see." Plans are per user, three tiers plus Enterprise (see the table).

What it remembers, and whether you can see it. Good marks, in a team-shaped way: "Its memory is yours to edit. Lindy learns everything about you, and it all lives in plain files. Open the memory folder, read what it remembers, and change it like a doc." The release calls them "editable plain-text memory files." It is workspace memory, built from the team's meetings, tools and Slack history.

Where it falls short for this job. It is sold to teams, per user, and lives in a company Slack. For the solo partner or fractional executive whose work is client threads and calls rather than a shared workspace, it is the wrong shape by design, not by weakness.

Pick it if you run a team on Slack and want one assistant the whole team can hand work to, with a memory you can open as files.

6. Instinct — the deepest reach, by invitation, with a record to read first

What it does. Instinct's site (Spear Street Technology, Inc., San Francisco): "Instinct is a personal assistant that understands what you're working on and what's important to you. It connects to your applications and devices - email, messaging, screen, audio, location, and more. … It's trained to use a phone and a computer. You can text or call it." The examples are "following up on threads you've dropped, proactively calling or texting you, arranging a ride to the airport, booking a handyman for your apartment." Access: "Instinct is currently available to a private access group as we're scaling up compute. You can join the waitlist here or ask an existing member to invite you." No price is published. On 26 August 2026 TechCrunch reported a $250 million Series B at a $2.5 billion valuation led by Index Ventures and Benchmark.

The documented record. Two days earlier, on 24 August, TechCrunch reported early testers' experiences; because this is a product that asks for everything, the report is worth reading in full. As reported: Claire Vo "found that Instinct was still summarizing their inbox after disconnecting its access" — in her own post, disconnected at 11 AM, summary at 2 PM; Peter Yang "pointed out that Instinct would not delete his Gmail records when asked. (The team later fixed the problem by adding a tool for deleting external data in its settings, he said.)"; Alex Cohen wrote that "once he found out how easily Instinct could be phished, he deleted his account" — his test, in his words: "I created a brand new Gmail account and emailed my real personal account with instructions for Instinct"; and investor Katie Jacobs Stanton posted that it "sent an innocuous email on my behalf without checking with me first." Instinct told The Wall Street Journal it was "taking the security concerns raised seriously." Its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy both now read "Last revised on August 26, 2026." As revised, user materials may be used to "develop, provide, maintain and improve the Services … including training AI models," with an opt-out in settings, and "even if you disconnect a Connected Service, we may still use the indexed Connected Service Input data unless you follow the instructions to request deletion"; the privacy policy adds, "We do not use information received from Google Workspace APIs to evaluate, fine-tune, train, or improve AI models."

What it remembers, and whether you can see it. Everything it connects to is in scope. The pages we read describe deletion at the level of a connected service or the account, and a training opt-out; they do not describe a list of what it holds about you that you can read, edit or delete item by item.

Pick it if you want the most capable agent on this list, can get an invitation, and have read the terms in the light of the report above.

7. Martin — a low-cost assistant that calls and texts

What it does. Martin's page description reads "Martin manages your calendar, inbox, SMS, phone calls, WhatApp [sic], Slack, and more. Call, text, or email your AI assistant," and its page title calls it "Your AI like Jarvis." It places calls and sends texts, drafts and sends email, sets reminders and manages the calendar, and there is an iPhone app — "Get Martin for iOS — Voice mode, notifications, and shortcuts" — one of the few native apps here. Pricing is two tiers on its Personal tab, Basic and Pro, billed yearly or monthly with a seven-day trial (see the table); Basic is "Basic AI models," "Limited proactive actions," "Give Martin 2 tasks at a time"; Pro is "Our most advanced AI models," "Unlimited proactive actions."

What it remembers, and whether you can see it. The homepage and pricing page speak of Martin remembering preferences (a user review on the page: it "remembers your preferences") but describe no page where you can read, edit or delete what it has kept.

Where it falls short for this job. It works from the inbox and calendar you connect, the tasks are everyday ones, and the pages we read are light on how it handles the substance of professional work — documents, threads, what was agreed.

Pick it if you want an inexpensive assistant that will phone the restaurant and text you back, with an app on your phone.

8. Del — the digital handyman, over iMessage

What it does. Del's homepage title is "Del — your digital handyman," its pitch "Text it to Del, then forget about it" — "No app, no login, just a text." Its use-case pages call it "a proactive assistant that lives in your messages." Channels, from its updates feed: SMS and iMessage (9 June 2026), Telegram (23 July), WhatsApp (23 August), plus a web app for settings and a "Vault." It acts on your behalf more than most here — web-browsing tasks; saved payment cards and phone numbers in the Vault (24–25 August) so it can check out for you; bank accounts via Plaid (29 June) and Venmo (1 September). Gmail is a connection: the privacy policy (5 August 2026; Human Interface, Inc.) describes "read and write access to your Gmail," reading "recent messages (by default those from the last 7 days)" that are "fetched on demand and are not persisted to our database," and sending or replying "only when you direct the assistant to do so." The examples are life admin — a marketplace sale, a flight-price watch, a warranty claim — for founders, real-estate agents, small-business owners and busy parents.

What it remembers, and whether you can see it. "Del remembers everything you tell it and keeps you on track." Its feed records a "Smarter long-term memory" upgrade (8 June) and, on 20 June, "Memory source tracing — Del can now look up and tell you exactly when and how it learned a specific fact" — tracing on request. No page we read documents a list of remembered facts you can review or delete one by one; what is documented is account deletion, which "removes your tasks, notes, chat history, SMS records, and stored Google Calendar OAuth tokens."

Where it falls short for this job. Its own repositioning says it: a handyman for a busy life, not an assistant for a client practice. Its "automated morning briefings" were removed on 23 August. And its pricing is inconsistent across its own pages — see the table — so confirm at sign-up.

Pick it if the assistant you want is for errands, refunds and reservations over text, and you are happy for it to hold cards and bank connections to get them done.

9. Microsoft Scout — a desktop agent for Microsoft 365, in preview

What it does. Microsoft's documentation: "Microsoft Scout is a desktop AI application for Windows and macOS that takes action on your behalf. It reads and writes files, runs shell commands, controls a browser, queries your Microsoft 365 data, and works autonomously in the background" — "with your approval before sensitive actions." It works with Outlook mail and calendar, Teams meetings and messages, and files in OneDrive and SharePoint; the August 2026 release added Teams meeting transcripts and room booking. Every page carries the status: "You need to be part of the Frontier preview program … to get early access to Microsoft Scout," and "This is a preview feature" — in practice, your organisation enrolled, an admin who enabled it, and a GitHub Copilot Business or Enterprise seat. "Does Microsoft Scout work on mobile devices? No." Microsoft's pages name no price and no general-availability date — only that "Regional availability might change as Microsoft Scout moves from preview to general availability" — so treat any date you read elsewhere as unconfirmed.

What it remembers, and whether you can see it. "Microsoft Scout remembers your preferences and decisions across conversations," and "proactively saves important information as you work - you don't need to ask." Unusually, it records the source: "Each memory tracks its provenance (where it came from): session-inferred, imported, or external," and external-source memories are treated "as data, not instructions." To manage them: "Open Settings. Select View memories in the Memory section. Review stored memories. Delete any that are no longer relevant." Viewing and deleting are described; editing a memory in place is not.

Where it falls short for this job. It is a tenant product in preview, gated by your IT department and a developer licence, and it does not run on a phone. Its reach is the organisation's Microsoft 365; a PDF a client sent to your personal address or a memo on your phone is outside it.

Pick it if your firm is in the Frontier programme, you work on a Windows or Mac desktop inside Microsoft 365, and you want an agent with a reviewable memory there.

10. Equerry — remembers what you handed it, and shows you the original

What it does. Equerry is a personal assistant for iPhone and iPad, and the one entry here built around the third shape: it knows the material you decided to give it, item by item, and nothing else. The gesture is the CC line. You get your own address — something like mark@mail.getequerry.app — and copy it once on the client thread that matters, from the mail app you already use; every later reply on that thread reaches it without you doing anything more. Documents arrive the same deliberate way — the contract as a PDF, the whiteboard photo, the screenshot — shared from whatever app they are in; a memo dictated on the drive back and a note typed at the gate land in the same place, all searchable together. When a call is on your calendar, a brief arrives before it, assembled only from what you shared, the late unread reply included; a brief can also come on a schedule you set. And when Equerry answers from your material, the answer carries a chip that opens the actual email, note or page, so the line is checked before you repeat it to a client.

What it remembers, and whether you can see it. Every fact taken from what you shared is listed in Settings → Your Memory and deletable on a tap; each saved item shows what was drawn from it; and deleting an item takes what came from it along too. Nothing expires on a timetable you didn't set. The difference from the other good answers here — Town's wiki, Lindy's files, Scout's memory list — is the unit: those are syntheses about you built from accounts or a workspace; this is a record per item you handed over, with the original one tap away.

Where it falls short for this job. Equerry loses several columns outright, and this page says which. It does not act on your behalf: it does not place calls, book the table, buy the ticket or send the email — Catch, Hey Noah, Poke, Instinct, Martin and Del all do some or all of that. It is not on your calls and does not record or transcribe them; a meeting exists for it only once you have sent something afterwards — the memo, your notes, or a transcript from a notetaker. It does not read a mailbox it was not sent: a thread it wasn't CC'd on is invisible to it, which is the point, but the choosing is yours to do, and Hey Noah is the only other entry that works that way. It has none of the workspace reach of Scout or Lindy Teammate, and no Mac or Windows app. Keep the assistant you already think with for drafting; this one is for remembering.

As for where it all rests: what you create in the app stays in your own iCloud account, a forwarded or CC'd message is read at our email provider and then deleted from it (your own copy stays in your mailbox), and the searchable excerpts and extracted facts that make any of it answerable sit on our servers — every extracted fact listed in Settings → Your Memory and deletable on a tap, and every excerpt gone when you delete the item it came from — the full account is in our privacy policy.

Pick it if your work runs on specific client threads, documents and calls, you want to choose what the assistant sees item by item, and you want to see where an answer came from when it draws on your notes, emails or the web.

Plans and prices, as read on 2026-09-08

One table, one date, so a change touches one place; no plan price appears anywhere else on this page. Figures are exactly as each vendor's page displayed them that day; several show only an annual-billing rate, and several change with cohort or region.

At a glance

Every quotation above was read on 2026-09-08 from the vendors' own pages unless a press source is named: Catch's homepage and security page, with launch facts from Tech Startups (3 September 2026); Hey Noah's FAQ and homepage; Town's homepage, pricing page and docs (docs home, "Context & Memory," "Wiki"), with funding from Town's release of 3 June 2026; Poke's pricing page, FAQ, release notes and privacy policy (channels from its docs, read 4 September); Lindy's homepage and release of 4 September 2026, with the 10 August launch as reported by The Cognitive Revolution; Instinct's site, Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, with tester reports and funding from TechCrunch (24 and 26 August 2026); Martin's homepage (title and page description) and pricing page; Del's homepage, use-case pages, updates feed and privacy policy; Microsoft Learn's Scout overview, "Use Microsoft Scout," FAQ and "What's new" pages. Plan names, prices and controls change; check the vendor's page before deciding.

Three shapes, and the question to ask before you choose

Run the four columns across the ten and the list sorts itself. Seven — Catch, Hey Noah, Town, Poke, Instinct, Martin, Del — act for you from the accounts you connect, differing in how much they do, how much they ask first, and whether the connection is the whole inbox (most) or the threads you copy them on (Hey Noah). Two — Lindy Teammate and Microsoft Scout — belong to a workspace and are chosen by teams. One is built around material you choose item by item.

On the column the listicles skip, three of the nine others let you open the record — Town's wiki, Lindy's files, Scout's memory list — each a synthesis about you built from an account or a workspace; the rest say they learn you and stop there. Equerry's record differs in kind: a list of facts per item you handed over, the original one tap away, nothing in it you didn't send. So the question that sorts this list isn't "which AI executive assistant is best." It's: do you need an assistant that acts for you from your accounts, or one that remembers what you chose to give it and briefs you from that — and when it tells you what it knows about a client, can you open the source? If the first, pick from the seven by how much you want done and how much you want asked, or from the two if your team lives in Slack or Microsoft 365. If the second, that is the shape Equerry was built to be — alongside, not instead of, whichever of the others does your booking.

Last updated 2026-09-08.

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