On July 23, 2026, Cognition announced it is acquiring The Interaction Company of California — the startup behind Poke, the AI assistant that lives in your text messages. Cognition is best known for Devin, its autonomous AI software engineer. If you use Poke (or were about to try it), here's what the acquisition actually means, and the best iMessage AI alternatives worth knowing about in 2026.
Poke Alternatives: The Best iMessage AI After the Cognition Acquisition
What Is Poke?
Poke is a personal AI agent that works entirely through messaging apps you already have — iMessage, SMS, and Telegram, with limited WhatsApp support in some markets. No app to download: you text it like a contact, and it texts back. Connect your email and calendar and it drafts replies, reschedules meetings, watches for important emails, sets reminders, and proactively follows up on its own.
Poke grew fast. It handled over 100 million messages in the three months before the acquisition, raised $15M, and in June 2026 became the first third-party AI agent natively approved for Apple Messages via Business Chat. Its pricing has shifted over time — roughly $10/month for the standard tier, with heavier background work famously "negotiated" with the agent itself.
What the Cognition Acquisition Means
Cognition's stated plan is reassuring for existing users:
- Poke keeps running. Current users continue without disruption, and the product keeps its Apple Messages approval.
- It moves to Cognition's stack. Cognition says it will make Poke faster and more reliable using its own models and infrastructure.
- The vision is "always-on cloud agents." Both companies frame the deal as combining Devin-style autonomous agents with Poke's phone-native, conversational interface.
The open question is direction. Cognition's core business is AI software engineering — Devin sells to engineering teams, not consumers. When a consumer product joins a company with a different center of gravity, the common outcomes are: it thrives as the consumer face of the platform, it slowly becomes a developer-focused companion, or it gets folded into the flagship. Nobody outside Cognition knows which of these Poke gets. If your daily workflow depends on a texting assistant, it's a good moment to know what else is out there.
Best iMessage AI Alternatives to Poke (2026)
What made Poke special was the contact-first model: the AI lives in your Messages app instead of another app icon on your home screen. The best apps like Poke keep that property — these are the strongest options, ordered by how little setup they require.
1. Olly (Best Overall Alternative)
Like Poke, Olly is an AI you text in iMessage — save the number, send a message, done. What sets it apart from other texting assistants is the complete feature set: it answers questions, browses the web, runs deep research, manages reminders and your schedule, analyzes photos and documents, generates images and designs, and can even build small apps for you on request — all from a text thread. Most iMessage assistants specialize in one narrow job (Tomo, for example, only handles reminders); Olly covers the whole range of what made Poke useful, and then some. Because it's a regular iMessage contact, there's no app and no account setup, and it works on any iPhone — including Apple Watch and CarPlay via Siri — with no Apple Intelligence hardware requirements.
2. Apple Intelligence (Best Built-In Option)
If you have an iPhone 15 Pro or newer on a recent iOS, Apple Intelligence gives you writing tools, notification summaries, and ChatGPT-backed Siri answers without installing anything. It's not a proactive agent like Poke — it won't text you first or watch your inbox — but for quick answers it's already in your pocket. Older iPhones are excluded, which is exactly the gap contact-based bots fill (see our guide to ChatGPT on older iPhones).
3. Hermes Agent (Best Self-Hosted Alternative)
Want a Poke-style agent you fully control? Hermes Agent is the open-source, self-hosted route: it runs on your own server, keeps persistent memory, writes its own skills, and connects to iMessage through the Photon managed channel (no Mac needed) or a BlueBubbles gateway. It's the closest thing to owning your own Poke — at the cost of running infrastructure and paying model API bills yourself.
4. OpenClaw + imsg CLI (Best DIY-on-a-Mac Alternative)
If you have an always-on Mac and like building, OpenClaw with the imsg CLI lets an open-source agent read and send messages through your own Messages.app — acting inside your existing conversations rather than as a separate contact. Powerful, but it's a project, not a product.
5. AI Chat SMS (Best for Plain SMS)
If iMessage isn't a requirement — or you're helping someone on a non-Apple phone — AI Chat SMS offers a texting AI over plain SMS. It's constrained by SMS itself (character limits, no rich attachments), but covers the basic "text a question, get an answer" use case on any phone.
Poke vs. the Alternatives at a Glance
| Assistant | Setup | Proactive? | Works on any iPhone | Ownership status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Poke | Text a number | Yes (email/calendar follow-ups) | Yes | Just acquired by Cognition |
| Olly | Text a number | Reminders & scheduled check-ins | Yes | Independent |
| Apple Intelligence | Built in | No | No (iPhone 15 Pro+) | Apple |
| Hermes Agent | Self-hosted server | Yes (you configure it) | Yes (via gateway) | Open source |
| OpenClaw + imsg | Mac + CLI setup | Yes (you configure it) | Acts in your own chats | Open source |
| AI Chat SMS | Text a number | No | Any phone (SMS) | Independent |
Why Texting Agents Are Suddenly Acquisition Targets
The Poke deal confirms something we've argued since the first wave of iMessage bots: the most natural interface for a personal AI isn't another app — it's the messaging thread you already live in. Contact-first assistants get used in "micro-moments" (in the car, from the Watch, mid-conversation) where opening an app never happens. Cognition just paid to own that interface. Apple approving AI agents in Messages Business Chat earlier this year opened the door; expect more agents — and more consolidation — to follow.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who acquired Poke?
Cognition — the AI coding company behind Devin, the autonomous software engineer — acquired The Interaction Company of California, the startup behind Poke, on July 23, 2026.
Is Poke shutting down?
No. Cognition says existing users keep the product unchanged, and that Poke will move onto Cognition's models and infrastructure to get faster and more reliable. The longer-term product direction under a developer-tools company is the open question.
What is Poke?
A personal AI agent that lives in your texts — iMessage, SMS, and Telegram — connecting to email and calendar, proactively following up on tasks. It was the first third-party AI agent natively approved for Apple Messages and handled 100M+ messages in the three months before the acquisition.
What's the best alternative to Poke?
For the same zero-setup, text-a-contact experience with the fullest feature set: Olly — it handles everything from research and reminders to generating images and building small apps. For built-in (new iPhones only): Apple Intelligence. For full control: self-hosted Hermes Agent or OpenClaw. For plain SMS on any phone: AI Chat SMS.
Does Poke still work on iMessage?
Yes — Cognition says the service continues without disruption, including its native Apple Messages support.