Shortwave AI Assistant

Shortwave's bet is that the inbox itself should do the work, not just render it faster. The AI inbox organization button alone — identify important emails and todos, sweep away the rest — is the feature most competitors still can't match in one click. Custom AI filters written in plain English let you automate labeling, starring, archiving, and deleting without learning a rules language, and the search is where Shortwave pulls ahead of most inbox add-ons: describe what you want and the AI queries your team's email history, reads PDF, text, and code attachments, and keeps 5 years of search history on Business (unlimited on Premier and Max). The February 2026 upgrade to the Claude 4.6 family matters more than the headline suggests — Standard tier now runs Claude Sonnet 4.6 with reasoning, and the top tiers get adaptive thinking, so answers on messy threads are noticeably better than the Claude Haiku-era responses. The January 2026 Tasklet integration is the other big shift: triggers that draft replies when mail arrives, add team comments, and organize threads, wired to 3,000+ apps. Strengths: team collaboration (real-time shared threads, private comments, assignable todos, shared labels, shared prompts and templates) is unusually complete for an email client; read statuses, link tracking, and a recent-opens feed are genuinely useful for sales and support; auto-BCC to HubSpot and Salesforce keeps CRM logs clean; and it runs on iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and web as a PWA. Weaknesses: AI usage is quota-based. Business allows roughly 150-300 Standard intelligence requests per day, Premier gives 2x, and Max gives 6x — but the quota varies with request complexity and intelligence level, so heavy users should watch it. Search context is tiered (50, 100, 150 threads per search) and context tokens scale (Standard, 2x, 3x), which means the best answers sit behind the top plans. Expert intelligence (Claude Opus 4.6 with adaptive thinking) is locked to Max at $120/seat/month, which is a real jump. The client is Gmail-connected, so it isn't a fit if you want a traditional client with no AI automation, need on-premises hosting or data residency outside the US, or rely on offline-only email. Where it fits: professionals and teams who treat email as a shared work surface — sales, support, agencies, founders — and will pay for AI that actually files, drafts, and searches. Where it doesn't: light email users who won't get $30/seat/month of value, and teams whose core tools aren't in the documented integration list or MCP-compatible.