An AI email assistant supports email management processes and helps enhance productivity by automating responses, scheduling meetings, managing tasks while providing continuous support.
We selected below 5 AI email assistants based on their capabilities in drafting messages, offering personalized suggestions, and organizing inboxes. Discover the reasoning behind our selection by clicking on the product name links:
Task and contact management
Scheduling
Automation and email generation
Team collaboration
Personalization and cold emails
Top 5 AI email assistant software
Vendor | Rating | Starting price/month/user | Free plan | Free trial | Integrations |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mailbutler | based on reviews | $9 | ❌ | 14-day | Google Workspace, Apple Mail & Outlook |
Shortwave | based on reviews | $7 | ✅ | ❌ | Google Workspace |
MailMaestro | based on reviews | $12 | ✅ | 14-day | Google Workspace & Outlook |
Missive | 4.9 based on 82 reviews | $14 | ✅ | 30-day | Google Workspace, Apple Mail & Outlook |
SmartWriter | based on reviews | $49 | ❌ | 7-day | N/A |
Sorting in the table is based on number of reviews obtained from B2B review platforms, G2 and Capterra.
Detailed comparison of AI email assistants
Mailbutler
Mailbutler’s Smart Assistant provides a solution for managing contacts and tasks directly from your inbox.
Contact finder: Mailbutler’s Smart Assistant helps simplifying adding contacts automatically by gathering relevant information from received emails and adding it to the Mailbutler Contacts feature.
This feature ensures that important contact details are captured without manual effort. Users can then edit and customize any fields as needed and include additional information.
Task finder: Mailbutler’s Smart Assistant scans incoming emails and generates a comprehensive list of actionable to-dos, which can be added to the Mailbutler Tasks feature. This feature helps users maintain a clear overview of pending tasks and boost productivity.
Figure 1: Mailbutler’s smart response example.
Shortwave
Shortwave helps users manage their email efficiently by splitting their inbox into tabs tailored for important emails, specific senders, labels, or custom queries. It offers bulk triage capabilities, bundling promotions, newsletters, and updates to help users achieve inbox zero faster.
Users can turn emails into an organized to-do list while allowing them to group, rename, prioritize, and add notes within their inbox.
Shortwave also supports scheduled email delivery to ensure messages arrive at convenient times and prevent interruptions. Additionally, the platform enhances productivity with full markdown support and keyboard shortcuts by allowing users to work without touching their mouse.
Figure 2: Shortwave inbox management dashboard.
MailMaestro
MailMaestro integrates with Google Workspace and Outlook and focuses mostly on the email summary and content generation.
MailMaestro support users’ email writing processes by guiding their AI assistant with job titles, preferred tones, and specific word choices. It enables users to provide important context such as contact details, preferred terminology, and words to avoid to ensure that the assistant crafts personalized and precise messages.
It also allows users to request summaries of long attachments and use keyword shortcuts to insert details like phone numbers or LinkedIn profiles. Additionally, MailMaestro manages repetitive email tasks by combining templates with AI assistance for improved efficiency.
Figure 3: MailMaestro AI personality feature example.
Missive
Missive provides an unified platform for team collaboration and integration of various messaging channels.
Team inboxes: Missive offers assignment workflows with two distinct roles: Active members, who receive notifications, and Observers, who do not. This setup allows teams to triage messages efficiently.
In Missive, team inboxes enable collaboration around various message sources, including email accounts, Google Groups, distribution lists, SMS, live chats, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and custom API accounts.
SMS and WhatsApp collaboration: Missive enables teams to collaborate on SMS communications to ensure efficient handling of text messages within the same platform. The platform also supports WhatsApp integration to allow the entire team to manage and respond to WhatsApp messages collectively.
Figure 4: Missive AI email assistant dashboard.
SmartWriter
SmartWriter is specialized in B2B sales and backlink outreach with advanced personalization using icebreakers, cold emails, Google reviews, Instagram comments and LinkedIn outreaches.
SmartWriter also provides an email quality check tool to fine tune emails by pinpointing issues based on its levels of readability and text statistics.
Figure 5: Smartwriter dashboard for creating customized emails using feedback from Google and Facebook reviews.
What is an AI email assistant?
An email assistant is an AI-powered tool designed to help users manage their email communication efficiently. These tools leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to offer a range of services, including grammar checking, sentiment analysis, and personalized suggestions, to ensure an error-free document ready to be sent.
AI email assistants assist users write emails, manage inboxes, and respond to incoming messages with ease. These tools are usually compatible with popular email clients including Apple Mail, Microsoft Outlook, and Gmail accounts.
AI email assistant key features
Generate email content
AI email assistants can draft entire emails based on minimal input or prompts provided by the user. They use natural language processing (NLP) to craft coherent, professional, and contextually appropriate content.
This feature helps saving time and ensures that emails maintain a consistent tone and language quality. Users can provide brief notes or keywords, and the assistant will generate a detailed, structured email, whether it’s for business communications, outreach, follow-ups, or responses.
Personalized suggestions
The AI email assistant can analyze past communications and other relevant data to offer personalized suggestions that align with the user’s style, preferences, and past interactions.
This feature helps ensure that the email content feels authentic and tailored while making communications more effective and engaging. For example, it can suggest phrases, tone adjustments, or specific details to include based on the recipient’s profile or past interactions.
Smart replies
AI email assistants provide quick, context-aware response suggestions for incoming emails. These smart replies are concise, relevant, and can be customized before sending.
By using NLP and machine learning, the AI email assistant assesses the content of the email and suggests appropriate responses, such as agreeing to a meeting time, acknowledging receipt of information, or replying to inquiries. This feature supports productivity by reducing the time spent on routine replies.
Automatic meeting scheduling
The assistant can integrate with calendars and scheduling tools to automatically propose and schedule meetings.
It scans the content of emails to identify potential meeting opportunities, coordinates availability between parties, and sends meeting invitations. This feature helps eliminating the back-and-forth usually required to find a suitable time slot, therefore managing the scheduling process.
Inbox management
AI email assistants can help manage a cluttered inbox by categorizing emails, prioritizing important messages, and suggesting which emails to archive or delete.
This intelligent organization is based on user-defined rules, historical data, and content analysis. AI email assistant can highlight urgent emails, flag messages from specific contacts, or group related threads to make it easier to stay on top of important correspondence.
Smart search and filtering
Finding old emails or specific content within a large inbox can be time-consuming. AI-powered search and filtering capabilities use advanced algorithms to locate emails based on keywords, topics, senders, dates, or specific attachments.
The AI tool can predict and autocomplete search terms to make the process faster and more efficient. Enhanced filtering also allows users to sort and view emails according to various criteria, such as unread messages, emails requiring responses, or promotional content.
Integrations
AI email assistants often come with integrations with Apple Mail, Google Workspace, and Outlook. These integrations allow users to access AI features directly within their preferred email client without switching applications.
This connectivity extends to other productivity and collaboration tools, such as CRM systems and project management software.
Benefits of leveraging AI email assistants
Using AI email assistants comes with several benefits that can significantly enhance productivity:
Time-saving with automated responses
One of the greatest benefits of AI in email management is its ability to draft quick, automated replies to enable users to handle emails easily. This reduces the time spent on crafting individual responses, especially for common queries.
Additionally, AI excels in inbox management by sorting and prioritizing incoming emails. It can filter out spam or non-essential emails and categorize important messages based on user preferences or urgency. AI can also suggest or auto-fill common templates for repetitive emails to eliminate the need to write them from scratch and significantly speeding up the process.
Improved productivity with scheduling assistance
AI email assistants can integrate with calendars to schedule meetings or appointments directly from email interactions to manage communication and scheduling tasks. They can also set follow-up reminders for users that they don’t miss critical responses or actions.
Moreover, AI’s capability to summarize lengthy email chains or attached documents helps users quickly understand key points, making decision-making faster and more informed, therefore boosting overall productivity.
Enhanced communication with writing assistance
AI-powered tools can refine email drafts by correcting grammar, improving tone, and enhancing structure to make emails more professional and concise. These tools can also provide real-time language translation for users to communicate easily with recipients who speak different languages.
AI can analyze prior interactions and tailor responses to reflect the user’s writing style, adding a touch of personalization that improves engagement and connection.
Data extraction and insights with contact information capture
AI can identify and save contact information automatically from email signatures, saving users the manual effort of inputting data.
AI assistants can also offer analytics on email engagement, such as response times and open rates, tp provide valuable insights that can inform communication strategies and workflow improvements.
Reduced cognitive load with smart filtering
AI email assistants help reduce the mental burden on users by filtering and prioritizing important messages while minimizing clutter in the inbox.
This enables individuals to focus on what truly matters without sifting through non-essential emails. Some advanced AI tools even recognize tasks within email content and delegate them to the relevant team members, further simplifying workload management.
24/7 availability with around-the-clock support
Unlike human counterparts, AI email assistants provide continuous support. They can send automated responses and acknowledge emails outside working hours to ensure that important messages are not left unattended. This round-the-clock availability helps maintain consistent communication and reduces response time.
Scalability in handling high volumes of emails
For businesses managing large email traffic, AI can handle high volumes effortlessly, which is especially beneficial for customer support teams or sales inquiries.
Additionally, AI tools enable bulk operations, such as sending follow-up emails to multiple recipients or categorizing emails in groups to increase the ability to manage extensive correspondence without manual effort.
Security and compliance with anomaly detection
AI-powered email tools can identify potential security threats, such as phishing attempts, by analyzing unusual patterns or suspicious content. This added layer of protection helps prevent cyber-attacks and data breaches.
AI can also ensure that emails comply with company policies or industry regulations, which is particularly valuable for sectors that demand strict adherence to compliance standards, thus reducing risks related to policy violations.