A Palo Alto-based startup has launched an AI agent designed to be accessible through standard messaging platforms, requiring no software installation or technical configuration.
Poke, developed by The Interaction Company of California, became publicly available in March and operates over iMessage, SMS, Telegram, and, in select markets, WhatsApp.
Users initiate the service by visiting Poke.com, entering a phone number, and beginning interaction through their existing messaging application. The company positions this approach as a direct response to the barriers that have limited broader adoption of agentic AI systems.
“People started asking Poke to remind them to take their medication, tell them sports results, and provide daily weather updates, even though the product was only intended for email.”
According to co-founder Marvin von Hagen, the product’s broader scope emerged from observing user behaviour during an earlier beta phase centred on email management. Users consistently attempted to apply the assistant to unrelated tasks, prompting the team to expand its capabilities into a general-purpose platform.
Capabilities and Integrations
The platform supports a range of functions including daily scheduling, calendar management, health and fitness tracking, smart home control, and photo editing. Users may also compose automations in plain language and distribute them to other users within the platform.
The company refers to these automations as “recipes.” A library of pre-built options spans categories including productivity, health, finance, travel, and developer tooling. Third-party integrations are available for services such as Gmail, Google Calendar, Notion, Strava, Fitbit, Philips Hue, and Sonos. Developer-facing integrations include GitHub, Cursor, Vercel, and Supabase, among others.
Starting today, personal superintelligence is just one tap away.
No download, no signup.
Text Poke for free now:https://t.co/VIWYU64dUI 🌴
—
0:00 – What's Poke?
0:50 – Introducing Poke Recipes
1:25 – Create a Recipe in 10 seconds
1:43 – Earn on Poke
2:44 – Build with npx… pic.twitter.com/LHLFRVgahk— Poke (@interaction) March 19, 2026
Funding and Valuation
- Latest raise $10M
- Seed round $15M
- Valuation $300M
The company has secured $10 million in additional funding, supplementing a prior $15 million seed round. Its post-money valuation currently stands at $300 million. Institutional backers include Spark Capital and General Catalyst. Angel investors include Stripe co-founders John and Patrick Collison, OpenAI’s Joanne Jang, the founders of Cognition and Dropbox, and PayPal co-founder Ken Howery, among others.
Market Context
Poke enters a market in which demand for agentic AI systems is growing rapidly. Existing solutions, including OpenClaw, typically require command-line installation and carry security considerations related to deep system access. The company contends that such requirements remain prohibitive for a significant portion of potential users.
Unlike AI products developed by major technology companies, which are generally limited to their proprietary models, Poke routes each task to the most suitable AI model available, drawing from both commercial providers and open-source alternatives.
On pricing, the service is free for interactions that do not require real-time data processing. Costs are applied for tasks involving live inference, such as continuous inbox monitoring or real-time flight tracking. The platform determines pricing on a per-user basis according to usage patterns.
Von Hagen has stated that the company’s near-term priority is growth over profitability, with an ambition to bring the product to one billion users.
Getting started with Poke is a breeze compared to OpenClaw. Just head over to Poke.com, hit the “Get Started” button, and enter your phone number. No need to worry about downloading an app since the assistant works through text messaging.
Using Poke won’t break the bank either. It’s actually quite budget-friendly. You can start for free, and after that, the pricing is pretty flexible. During the beta phase, users even had the chance to negotiate with the AI agent about their monthly fee, which typically fell between $10 and $30, according to what Poke shared with us when we asked.
