Artificial intelligence is rapidly advancing across every corner of the globe, and one area that has people really excited is AI for their personal productivity and work-life balance. AI apps are now able to essentially function as virtual assistants – helping people manage their time more effectively, reduce stress, and focus on what matters most. 

But what exactly is an AI assistant? An AI assistant is an app that uses artificial intelligence to understand your needs, perform tasks, and automates workflows to both save you time and make you more efficient.

So what might this look like for me? If you’re a busy manager, your AI assistant app might automatically plan your day around the meetings you need to be at. Or if you’re using an AI assistant at home, you could be using it to for setting reminders and activating home automations to make your life a little bit easier. Whatever the case, AI virtual assistants offer a helping hand, simplifying your day-to-day life.

So which AI-powered virtual assistants should you try out? Let’s take a look at the top AI assistant apps that will blow your mind in 2024.

The top 12 AI virtual assistant apps

1. Reclaim.ai - best AI calendar & scheduling
2. Google Assistant - best AI for informational retrieval
3. Apple Siri -  best iOS AI assistant
4. Amazon Alexa - best home automation AI
5. Whimsical - best AI for diagramming
6. ChatGPT - best overall AI chatbot
7. Gemini - best internet-connected AI chatbot
8. SlidesAI - best AI slide deck maker
9. Superhuman - best AI email client
10. Notion - best AI note-taking app
11. Bardeen - best AI workflow automation 
12. Grammarly - best AI writing assistant

1. Reclaim.ai

Best AI assistant for calendars & scheduling

Reclaim.ai is an AI calendar app that helps you create more time in your day. Instead of having to manually plan out what you need to do everyday, Reclaim automatically finds the best time for your meetings, tasks, habits, and breaks, saving you precious hours every day so you can get more done.

Their AI meeting assistant also allows you to collaborate better with your team by finding mutual free time across everyone’s busy schedules. They even have smart priority levels to surface up more open times slots to meet over lower-priority events for urgent meetings you need to book ASAP through Scheduling Links. Reclaimers also average 7.6 more productive hours/week with smart time blocking for regular routines and tasks synced right from their project management apps.

What really makes Reclaim the #1 AI assistants is that it understands you, your priorities, and the work-life balance you need in your personal life. Automatically protect yourself smart breaks to prevent back-to-back meetings, sync your Slack status to your calendar so you’re not interrupted all the time, and defend your personal events anonymously on your work calendar so you’re never overscheduled over another doctor's appointment again. Reclaim even gives you free AI time tracking analytics so you can see how you spend your time every week across both work and personal activities.

And best part yet, it’s free and runs right on top of your existing Google Calendar.

Key features

• AI scheduling: Automatically plan out the perfect daily schedule on your existing calendar using AI, and auto-reschedules events around conflicts.
• Habits: Smart recurring events that flexibly schedule at the best time in your calendar using AI scheduling windows.
• Tasks: Automatic time blocking for your to-do’s right to your calendar, at the best time around your priorities and deadlines.
• Smart Meetings: Find the best time for recurring meetings at the best time around all attendees calendars, and auto-reschedule around conflicts, PTO, or priority changes.
• Scheduling Links: Share your availability for meetings, and surface your max availability over lower priority events to book high-value meetings faster.
• Calendar Sync: Automatically sync your availability across all of your calendars to prevent scheduling conflicts.
• Time Tracking: Automatically track how much time you spend in meetings, tasks, habits, and important work-life balance metrics to improve your productivity.
• Buffer Time: Automatically defend time for breaks after meetings or focus time sessions, and travel time around external events..
• Priorities: Use smart priority levels for your Reclaim events and Google Calendar events to make sure your most important things are prioritized first.
• Integrations: Connects with Slack, as well as project management tools Asana, ClickUp, Todoist, Jira, Linear, and Google Tasks.

Drawbacks

• Google Calendar only: Currently only supports Google Calendar (Outlook coming soon).
• Limited project management features: Does not offer advanced project management functionalities like Gantt charts.

Reclaim.ai pricing: Free → paid plans start at $8/month

2. Google Assistant 

Best AI assistant for informational retrieval

Google Assistant is a virtual assistant powered by Google's vast knowledge base and advanced artificial intelligence. It excels in finding information due to its deep integration with Google Search, the world's leading search engine. You can ask Google Assistant anything – from factual questions like "How tall is Mount Everest?" to complex queries like "What are some good Italian restaurants near me?". It will tap into Google's resources (using text and speech recognition) to provide accurate and helpful answers, often giving you a summary of the information and links to further explore.

Still, Google Assistant goes beyond just web searches. It understands the context and can follow up on previous questions. This conversational style makes it feel like a natural interaction and helps you discover additional information smoothly. Whether you're looking for weather forecasts, sports scores, historical facts, or the latest news, Google Assistant is the ultimate AI assistant for finding the information you need.

And you can access Google Assistant from practically anywhere – your phone, tablet, smart display, smart speaker, TV, or even from your car.

Key features

• Voice commands: Control various devices and apps by simply using your voice.
• Information retrieval: Get answers to nearly any questions, from simple facts to complex inquiries, drawing on the power of Google Search.
• Smart home control: Manage compatible smart devices like lights, thermostats, and speakers throughout your home.
• Reminders & alarms: Set reminders for events, tasks, and deadlines. Create alarms to help you manage your time.
• Media playback: Play music, videos, podcasts, and audiobooks from popular services.
• Communication: Make calls, send text messages, and draft emails hands-free.
• Routines: Automate a series of actions with a single command (e.g., a "good morning" routine could turn on lights, read the news, and tell you the weather).
• Timers & calculations: Set timers for cooking or other tasks, and perform quick calculations.
• Translations: Translate phrases and words between different languages.
• Navigation: Get directions and real-time traffic information through Google Maps.
• Games & entertainment: Play games, hear jokes, and get fun trivia facts.

Drawbacks

• Privacy concerns: Like with many smart assistants, there are potential privacy concerns around the data collected and how it may be used. 
• Accidental activation: Google Assistant can sometimes misinterpret phrases as the "Hey Google" wake word, leading to unintentional actions. 
• Limited personalization: While it offers some customization, it may not be as tailored to individual users as some other virtual assistants. 
• Requires internet connection: Google Assistant heavily relies on the internet, so its functionality is reduced if you don't have a strong connection.

Google Assistant pricing: Free

3. Apple Siri

Best AI assistant for iOS

Siri is Apple's intelligent virtual assistant deeply integrated into iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and other Apple operating systems. It uses voice recognition and natural language processing to understand your spoken requests and then helps you complete tasks, retrieve information, and control your devices. Siri excels on Apple devices due to its integration with the overall Apple ecosystem. It can control smart home devices compatible with HomeKit, set reminders and alarms synced across your devices, and leverage information from other Apple apps like Photos or Maps.

One of Siri's biggest strengths lies in its privacy focus. Unlike some other assistants, Siri emphasizes on-device processing, minimizing the amount of data sent to external servers. This, combined with Apple's strong privacy policies, makes Siri a compelling choice for users who prioritize data protection.

Key features

• Hands-free device control: Set timers, alarms, and reminders, make phone calls, and send texts and emails.
• Information retrieval: Ask about weather, sports scores, movie times, directions, translations, fun facts, calculations, and more.
• Smart home integration: Control HomeKit-compatible smart devices (lights, thermostats, etc.)
• Music control: Play songs, albums, playlists, and control playback on Apple Music.
• Apple ecosystem integration: Access and use information across Apple apps like Photos, Maps, Calendar, and more.
• Proactive suggestions: Get app suggestions, reminders, directions, and shortcuts based on your usage habits.
• Personalization: It learns your preferences and adapts its responses over time.
• On-device processing: Prioritizes handling many requests directly on your device for enhanced privacy.

Drawbacks

• Accuracy limitations: Siri occasionally misunderstands requests or struggles with complex tasks.
• Limited third-party app control: While expanding, Siri's control of non-Apple apps can still be less robust compared to some competitors.
• Can lack conversational nuance: Siri may not always grasp the full context or intent of your questions, especially with humor or complex inquiries.

Apple Siri pricing: Free

4. Amazon Alexa

Best AI assistant for home automation

Amazon Alexa is a cloud-based virtual AI assistant created by Amazon that has powerful generative AI capabilities. It's the brains behind the popular Echo line of smart speakers and other Alexa-enabled devices. Alexa excels at home automation because of its wide range of compatible smart home devices. From lights and thermostats to security cameras and smart plugs, Alexa can control a wide array of products with simple voice commands. This centralized control makes managing your smart home incredibly convenient.

Also, with Alexa Routines, you can program multi-step automations. For example, saying "Alexa, good morning" could trigger your lights to turn on, the coffee maker to start brewing, and your favorite news podcast to play. Alexa's intuitive voice interface and integration with popular smart home brands make it the ideal AI assistant for streamlining your home environment.

Key features

• Smart home control: Manage lights, thermostats, locks, plugs, cameras, and many other compatible smart home devices with voice commands.
• Stream & play music: Play music from services like Amazon Music, Spotify, and Apple Music, and stream podcasts, audiobooks, news, and radio stations.
• Timers, alarms, & reminders: Set timers, get alarms for important events, and create reminders to keep you organized.
• Information & answers: Ask Alexa for weather updates, sports scores, unit conversions, general knowledge questions, and more.
• Routines: Create custom sequences of actions triggered by a single voice command (e.g., a "goodnight" routine could turn off lights and play relaxing music).
• Shopping: Order items easily from Amazon with your voice.
• Communication: Make calls, send messages, or use the "Drop In" feature for intercom-like communication between Alexa devices.
• Skills: Expand Alexa's capabilities with thousands of third-party skills that range from games and trivia to guided meditation and recipes.
• Fun & entertainment: Tell jokes, play games, and access other entertaining content.

Drawbacks

• Privacy concerns: Alexa's always-on nature might raise concerns for some users about data collection.
• Limited multi-command understanding: Alexa may struggle to process multiple commands given at once, unlike assistants like Google Assistant.
• Accidental triggers: Alexa can sometimes be activated unintentionally by similar-sounding words or phrases. 
• Requires strong wi-fi: Alexa's functionality heavily relies on a reliable internet connection for optimal operation.

Amazon Alexa pricing: Free 

5. Whimsical

Best AI assistant for diagramming

Struggling to spark creativity during brainstorming sessions? Feeling bogged down by clunky mind-mapping tools? Whimsical is an AI-powered brainstorming and collaboration tool that helps teams visually organize ideas and projects. Now, you and your team can brainstorm with the assistance of AI, generate ideas, and visualize them in real-time. 

Whimsical AI can act as a thought partner, suggesting relevant concepts and connections to spark creativity and break through mental blocks. This can be particularly helpful when starting with a blank canvas – simply provide a prompt or enter a URL, and Whimsical AI can generate mind maps, flowcharts, or even summaries of webpages to jumpstart your project.

Key features

• AI-powered brainstorming: Whimsical uses AI to assist with idea generation and real-time visualization.
• Collaborative mind mapping: Create mind maps with your team in a shared workspace.
• Flexible diagramming tools: Whimsical allows you to build wireframes, flowcharts, and other diagrams seamlessly within the platform.‍
• Real-time collaboration: Work together on projects simultaneously, fostering team productivity and efficiency.
• Multiple board types: Switch between different board types like sticky notes, mind maps, and whiteboards to best suit your needs.
• Intuitive interface: Easy to use for everyone, regardless of technical expertise.
• Visually appealing outputs: Create stunning mind maps, wireframes, and diagrams that effectively communicate your ideas.

Drawbacks

• Limited features in the free plan: The free plan has restrictions on the number of boards, but generously includes 100 AI actions per month.
• Fewer design features compared to dedicated tools: While Whimsical offers wireframing capabilities, it may not be as feature-rich as design-specific software like Figma or Sketch for complex user interface creation.
• Performance issues: Some users have reported occasional lag or crashes when working with large and complex boards, especially with the web app.

Whimsical pricing: Free → paid plans start at $10/month

6. ChatGPT

Best AI assistant across chatbots

ChatGPT is a powerful chatbot launched by OpenAI in November 2022. It's built on top of the company's GPT-3 family of large language models, which are advanced AI systems trained on a massive amount of text data using machine learning. ChatGPT can generate realistic and coherent conversation, making it suitable for a wide range of applications. Users can ask it questions, engage in extended dialogue on various topics, or even request that it write different kinds of creative content.

Because ChatGPT is still under development, it continues to learn and improve. It sometimes makes mistakes, but the goal is for it to provide informative and comprehensive responses, even to open-ended, challenging, or unusual questions. ChatGPT has the potential to be helpful for tasks like customer service, content creation, and even providing companionship in a virtual environment.

Key features

• Creative text generation: ChatGPT can create poems, code, scripts, musical pieces, and other creative text formats, offering inspiration and assistance to writers, artists, and developers.
• Conversational AI: ChatGPT excels at natural language conversations, allowing users to have engaging and informative dialogues on a variety of topics.
• Large knowledge base: Trained on a massive dataset of text and code, ChatGPT offers insightful responses and can answer your questions in an informative way.
• Multiple response options: Often provides multiple creative text format options or continues conversations in different directions, giving users a range of possibilities.
• Multilingual capabilities: ChatGPT can communicate and generate text in multiple languages, opening up its use to a broader audience.

Drawbacks

• Inaccurate information: ChatGPT can generate convincing but factually incorrect information. Its training data may contain biases or subjective viewpoints, leading to misleading outputs.
• Limited conversational ability: While it can follow prompts and styles, ChatGPT might miss the subtleties of human conversation. This can result in confusing or irrelevant responses.

ChatGPT pricing: Free → paid plans start at $20/month

7. Gemini 

Best AI assistant for internet-connected chat

Gemini is an AI chatbot developed by Google. It distinguishes itself from others with its exceptional ability to tap into the vastness of real-time information on the internet. This allows Gemini to provide remarkably comprehensive and up-to-date responses, exceeding what's typically possible with more closed language models. Gemini can synthesize information from various web sources and formulate remarkably insightful answers.

Its connection to the internet also allows Gemini to stay informed on current events and trends. This translates to an AI chatbot that can engage in conversations about breaking news, pop culture developments, and other timely topics in ways that feel fresh and relevant. This dynamic edge sets Gemini apart as one of the most advanced and informative AI chatbots available.

Key features

• Internet search integration: Queries the internet in real-time to find relevant information for its responses.
• Multi-modal reasoning: Processes and understands different data types, including text, images, and potentially others in the future.
• Informative summarization: Can distill complex information into concise and understandable summaries.
• Conversational style: Maintains a natural and engaging conversational flow, making interactions feel more human-like.
• Adaptive learning: Gemini's model continuously improves over time, refining its ability to understand and respond to user queries.
• Cross-app integration: Gemini can connect to various Google apps (Gmail, Docs, etc.) to perform tasks like drafting emails or creating summaries based on documents.
• Customization: Users can provide feedback or instructions to tailor Gemini's responses to their preferences.

Drawbacks

• Potential for misinformation: Reliance on the internet means potential exposure to unreliable sources. 
• Fact vs. opinion: The internet contains a mix of facts, opinions, and subjective viewpoints. Gemini may need further refinement to distinguish between these effectively in its responses.
• Bias: Inherent biases can exist in the data Gemini learns from. Continuous monitoring and updates are needed to mitigate the perpetuation of harmful biases.

Gemini pricing: Free → paid plans start at $19.99/month

8. SlidesAI

Best AI assistant for slide decks

SlidesAI is an AI-powered tool that helps you build presentations in record time. It works by analyzing your text input – whether it's notes, an article, or a document – and automatically transforms it into visually appealing slides. The AI handles tasks like summarizing key points, structuring your information, and even suggesting relevant images.

SlidesAI is designed to be a time-saver and an idea generator. It helps you overcome the "blank page" problem and delivers a great starting point for your presentation. While you might still want to refine and personalize things, SlidesAI eliminates much of the initial tedious work involved in creating slides.

Key features

• AI-powered slide generation: Turn text outlines into full presentations with layouts, text, and visuals.
• Variety of presentation styles: Choose from different presentation types and color presets to match your message.
• Google Slides integration: Works as a plugin within Google Slides, allowing for easy editing within your familiar workspace.
• Multilingual support: SlidesAI can handle text input and potentially generate presentations in over 100 languages.
• Customization options: While the AI generates the base, SlidesAI offers the ability to easily edit text, rearrange elements, and even insert additional content for a personalized touch.

Drawbacks

• Limited creative control: While SlidesAI offers customization options, the initial design and content generation rely on AI, potentially limiting highly creative presentations.
• Data interpretation errors: There's a possibility that the AI might misinterpret your text outline, leading to inaccuracies in the generated slides.
• Limited functionality: SlidesAI might lack advanced features like animations or a robust template library compared to dedicated presentation software.

SlidesAI pricing: Paid plans start at $10/month

9. Superhuman

Best AI assistant for email

Superhuman is a premium email app designed for speed and productivity with features like keyboard shortcuts and a customizable inbox. In addition to that, Superhuman also leverages AI to supercharge your email experience. Feeling stuck starting an email? Simply jot down some keywords or talking points and Superhuman's AI will generate a complete draft that matches your writing style. This eliminates writer's block and gets you composing emails faster. And typos or unclear phrasing is no longer an issue with Superhuman’s AI editor – correcting grammar, improving clarity, and even rewriting emails to maintain your unique voice. 

Finally, Superhuman's AI goes beyond basic read receipts. Analyzing these receipts can offer insights into why someone might not have replied, allowing you to craft a more effective follow-up message and improve your overall communication flow.

Key features

• Email optimization: Fly through your inbox with features like keyboard shortcuts, snippets for pre-written content, and undo send to eliminate email anxiety.
• Advanced search: Find exactly what you're looking for with powerful search filters that go beyond just keywords.
• Track important emails: Get notified when your most important emails are opened and ensure your message is seen.
• Schedule emails for later: Craft emails on your own time and send them at the perfect moment to maximize impact.
• AI-powered triage: Superhuman uses AI to automatically prioritize your inbox, similar to spam filters, but for highlighting important messages.
• Smart Reply suggestions: Leverages AI to suggest concise and relevant replies to emails.
• Snippet automation: This feature allows you to create pre-written email templates (Snippets) that can be inserted with a shortcut, reducing repetitive typing.
• Integrations: Connect Superhuman with tools like Grammarly, Hubspot, and Salesforce. 

Drawbacks

• High cost: Superhuman has a relatively high monthly subscription fee, which can be a significant drawback for casual users or those on a budget.
• Learning curve: While designed for ease of use, some users find Superhuman's interface and features require a learning curve, particularly on mobile devices.
• Limited integrations: Superhuman doesn't integrate with many popular productivity apps, which might be a dealbreaker for users heavily reliant on those tools.

Superhuman pricing: Paid plans start at $30/month

10. Notion - best AI note-taking app

Best AI assistant for note-taking

Notion is a workspace app designed to be your central hub for all things work-related. It goes beyond just note-taking, offering features for creating databases, wikis, project plans, and to-do lists – all within a single, flexible interface.

What truly sets Notion apart is its recent integration of AI. Notion AI acts as your writing assistant, helping you brainstorm ideas, summarize existing content, and even draft entire pages from scratch. This allows you to stay in your flow and be more productive without switching between different tools. With Notion AI still under development, even more powerful features are expected to emerge in the future.

Key features

• Flexible workspace: Create different pages for notes, projects, wikis, databases, and to-do lists.
• Drag-and-drop interface: Organize your workspace intuitively by easily rearranging content blocks.
• Rich text editor: Format your notes with various text styles, headings, and multimedia elements.
• Database management: Build custom databases to manage information and track projects.
• Collaboration tools: Share workspace access, assign tasks, and comment on projects with teammates.
• Templates: Use pre-built templates to jumpstart your projects or note-taking style.
• AI Assistant (beta): Brainstorm ideas, summarize content, and even draft text using Notion's built-in AI features.
• Integrations: Connect Notion with other tools you use, such as Slack, Google Drive, and Dropbox.

Drawbacks

• Learning curve: Notion's flexibility can be overwhelming for new users, with a steeper learning curve compared to simpler note-taking apps.
• Mobile app limitations: While Notion has mobile apps, they offer fewer features and functionality compared to the desktop version.

Notion pricing: Paid plans start at $8/month

11. Bardeen 

Best AI assistant for workflow automation

Bardeen is an AI-powered automation tool designed to save you time on routine tasks. It operates as a browser extension, integrating with your favorite web-based productivity tools like Google Suite, Slack, Notion, and more. With Bardeen, you can easily automate actions like data entry, sending emails, and scheduling social posts.

The tool's AI capabilities are a key strength. Bardeen learns your work patterns and proactively suggests automations to reduce repetitive actions, allowing you to focus on higher-value work. Its ease of use means you don't need coding knowledge to build powerful custom workflows that improve your efficiency.

Key features

• AI-powered automation: Analyzes your work habits and suggests potential automations to save you time.
• Automation builder: Create custom automations with a simple interface. You can build simple actions or complex workflows across multiple apps without any coding knowledge required.
• Web scraping: Extract structured data (text, tables, images) from any website for use in your workflows.
• Natural language commands: Use plain English to tell Bardeen what you want to automate. The AI understands your intent and builds the automation for you.
• Scheduled triggers: Schedule automations to run at specific times or based on events like when an email arrives or a new entry is added to a spreadsheet.
• Integrations: Bardeen connects with an ever-expanding list of popular tools like Google Sheets, Slack, Gmail, Trello, LinkedIn, Airtable, and many more.

Drawbacks

• Potential over-reliance: A potential downside of relying too much on automation is a reduced understanding of your underlying processes.
• Complexity with advanced workflows: While simple automations are easy, constructing very complex, multi-step flows may still have a learning curve. 
• Browser limitations: As a browser extension, Bardeen's functionality is limited to web-based actions and might not integrate with desktop-based software.

Bardeen pricing: Paid plans start at $10/month

12. Grammarly

Best AI assistant for writing

Grammarly is much more than your standard spellchecker. Powered by AI, it analyzes your writing to offer suggestions that go far beyond simple correctness. Grammarly can help you improve the clarity of your sentences, suggest more concise wording, and even adjust your tone to be more formal, friendly, or professional. Whether you're drafting an email or working on a longer document, Grammarly acts as a sophisticated writing companion that helps you communicate with confidence.

Grammarly's AI-driven features are designed to elevate your writing, serving as a personal writing coach that identifies potential areas of improvement and offers context-specific guidance. From confirming your sentences are easy to understand to finding stronger word choices, Grammarly's goal is to make your writing clearer, more effective, and error-free, making it one of the best AI writing assistants.

Key features

• Grammar & spelling checks: Identifies and suggests corrections for basic grammatical errors and misspellings.
• Clarity & conciseness suggestions: Helps you write sentences that are easier to read and understand, as well as finding more concise ways to phrase things.
• Tone detection: Analyzes your writing to give you a general sense of how it might sound to a reader (e.g., confident, friendly, formal).
• AI assistant features: Provides tools to help you generate text, rephrase content, and adjust your writing to match a specific style or tone.
• Vocabulary enhancement: Suggests more sophisticated and varied word choices.
• Sentence restructuring: Offers alternatives to improve sentence flow and readability.
• Genre-specific style guides: Provides tailored suggestions based on the type of writing you're doing (e.g., academic, business, casual).
• Plagiarism checker: Compares your text against billions of web pages to detect potential plagiarism.

Drawbacks

• Over-reliance: Users can become too dependent on the tool, hindering the development of their proofreading skills.
• Potential for false positives/negatives: While accurate, Grammarly might sometimes flag correct sentences as errors or miss nuanced mistakes. 
• Premium cost: Many advanced features are locked behind a premium subscription. 

Grammarly pricing: Paid plans start at $12/month

Simplify your life with AI assistants 🤖

As AI continues to evolve, expect even more innovative and personalized AI virtual assistants to emerge. The possibilities are endless, and these intelligent helpers will undoubtedly become an integral part of our daily routines. Whether you're seeking a helpful companion for daily tasks or a powerful assistant to boost productivity, there are many AI tools out there to transform your life. 

Any amazing AI assistants we missed? What are some of your favorites? Tweet us @reclaimai to let us know!