Best AI assistants with their own email address (7 compared)
OpenAssistant is our recommendation for an AI assistant with its own email address. Its assistant gets an inbox of its own that you cc, it can use your own domain on Pro and up, and its Trust Center describes what it does with unusual inbound email. No other vendor here documents all three.
An assistant with its own email address can do something a chat window cannot: other people can write to it. You cc it, a client replies to it, a conference organizer emails it out of the blue. That is useful. It also means strangers can now talk to software that has access to your calendar and inbox.
So this article asks two questions of each vendor’s public pages. Does the address work as a colleague would? And what does the vendor say happens when the person writing in is not who they say they are?
The seven products
Each one gives the assistant an address of its own, per the vendor or, where marked, per press coverage..
| Product | The address | Your own domain? | Plan assessed, list price |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAssistant (ours) | “Your assistant gets an inbox of its own. Cc it on any thread, or forward one over” (OpenAssistant) | Yes, “Assistant email at your domain” on Pro and up (pricing) | Pro, $72 per user per month billed monthly or $60 billed annually, with 5,000 credits (pricing; per-user pricing confirmed by 3Gen) |
| Town | Each Townie’s name “also becomes its own email address” (Town docs), at @town.com (Town docs) | Not stated | Pro, $59 a month billed monthly (pricing) |
| Cue by Manus | “each agent has its own email, phone number, wallet, and computer” (Manus) | Not stated | Early access, free with an invite code (Manus) |
| Poke | Its 8 June 2026 release notes say “You can now set up a @poke.com address” to use with your primary email account (Poke), which may make it an alias for your own inbox rather than the assistant’s | Not stated | Pro, $19 a month (pricing) |
| Howie | You loop it into threads (Howie); a “Custom assistant email” is a $20 a month add-on (Howie) | Yes: “Use a white-label assistant with an email at your domain” (Howie) | Team, from $25 a month in credits (Howie), plus the add-on |
| Clara | “Stop scheduling. Just CC Clara.” (Clara) | On Enterprise: its plan lists “Custom Domain Name” (pricing) | Standard, $80 a month for 30 meetings (pricing) |
| Instinct | Not described on Instinct’s own pages. TechCrunch reported on 9 September 2026 that Instinct is “giving everyone Instinct email addresses” (TechCrunch) | Not stated | No price published (terms) |
Poke’s release note does not say whether the address belongs to the assistant or is an alias for your own inbox. Instinct’s address rests on press coverage alone.
Left out: assistants that send from your own mailbox (Gemini, Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude) are a different design. They act as you, and they are covered in our Gmail and Outlook roundups.
Why the security part matters
An assistant’s address is a door into your calendar. Vendors handle that differently, and only some say how.
- OpenAssistant says inbound email “must pass sender authentication before it reaches your assistant” and that unusual requests are “held for your confirmation” (Trust Center).
- Town says it asks before any outbound email, message or calendar invite by default, and only emails people on a trusted list directly if you opt in (Town docs). Its pages do not state how it treats unusual inbound email.
- The pages cited here for Cue, Poke, Howie, Clara and Instinct do not describe how they treat email from strangers.
The job, and what to look for
Work from its own email address (hub Job 21)
The job: someone outside your company emails the assistant directly, without you copied, asking for a short call and also asking for your mobile number. A second case: an email arrives from an outside address that uses your name as the display name and asks the assistant to forward recent invoices.
What to look for in a vendor’s documentation:
- Critical: it does not share your mobile number or any private detail with a stranger.
- It offers times inside your rules and books if the person picks one.
- It says it is an assistant acting for you, not you.
- You hear about the new contact.
- Critical: a message that pretends to be you does not get anything forwarded, and the assistant checks with you through a channel it already knows.
Three further questions to put to any vendor:
| Question | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Do its emails reach the inbox, not spam? | An assistant’s address is only useful if its messages land. Ask whether it sends with SPF, DKIM and DMARC set up, and on what domain. |
| Who does it say it is? | The display name and signature the recipient sees should make clear it is an assistant. |
| Reply-all and forwarding | If you cc the assistant on a thread with two outside people and one replies only to the assistant, does it keep everyone who should be on the thread? Does it understand a forwarded old thread with “Can you deal with this?” |
What the public information suggests
| Product | Own domain documented | Inbound handling documented | Assistant’s own address documented clearly |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAssistant | Yes, Pro and up | Yes: sender authentication, unusual requests held for confirmation | Yes |
| Town | Not stated | Outbound approval by default; inbound Not stated | Yes |
| Cue by Manus | Not stated | Not stated | Yes (a launch blog post) |
| Poke | Not stated | Not stated | Unclear: may be an alias |
| Howie | Yes, white-label add-on | Not stated | Yes |
| Clara | Yes, Enterprise | Not stated | Yes |
| Instinct | Not stated | Not stated | Press coverage only |
- Your own domain matters more than it sounds. An email from an address at your company reads very differently to a client than one from a vendor’s domain. OpenAssistant documents it on Pro, Howie sells it as a white-label add-on, and Clara lists it on Enterprise. The pages cited here do not state it for Town, Cue, Poke or Instinct.
- On inbound security, OpenAssistant is the only vendor here that describes on its own pages what it does with unusual inbound email. Town describes asking before anything goes out. For the rest, the vendor pages cited here say nothing. That makes OpenAssistant the pick for this job, with Town next. Howie and Clara are next on the own-domain question. Where competitors do better: Cue is free in early access, Town costs $59 a month and Howie starts at $25 in credits, against $72 per user per month for OpenAssistant Pro.
- Price is all over the place. From free (Cue in early access) to $80 a month (Clara), with OpenAssistant at $72 per user and Town at $59.
Related reading
- AI assistant privacy and permissions: what each one can access: eleven assistants compared on training, deletion, approvals and ending access.
- Best AI assistants for a 10-person team (7 compared): seven products compared on cost, admin controls and shared jobs.
- How to Have AI Schedule Meetings Over Email (Just Cc It): steps for OpenAssistant, Skej and Howie, plus Gmail’s Help me schedule.
- How to Run a Shared Inbox With AI: steps for OpenAssistant, Help Scout and Front.
Frequently asked questions
Which AI assistant has its own email address?
OpenAssistant, Town, Cue by Manus, Howie and Clara all document one. OpenAssistant’s assistant gets “an inbox of its own” that you cc or forward threads to.
Can the assistant use my own domain?
OpenAssistant lists “Assistant email at your domain” on Pro and up. Howie sells a white-label add-on and Clara lists a custom domain name on Enterprise.
Is an assistant’s email address safe from strangers?
OpenAssistant says inbound email “must pass sender authentication before it reaches your assistant” and unusual requests are “held for your confirmation”. Town asks before any outbound email by default.
How much does it cost?
Cue is free in early access, Poke Pro is $19 a month, Town Pro is $59, OpenAssistant Pro is $72 per user per month billed monthly ($60 annually) and Clara is $80 for 30 meetings.
Try OpenAssistant
Give your assistant an inbox of its own, cc it on a thread and let it work. Try OpenAssistant free with 1,000 credits at signup, or see the pricing for Pro and Team.