Poke vs Cicada

Poke is a proactive personal assistant you text in iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram or RCS, free to start and now owned by Cognition. Cicada is an AI workforce for a business: every employee gets a teammate they text the same way, in group chats as well as one-to-one, plus Slack, email and meetings, with specialist agents working across your apps.

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The short version

Pick Cicada if the work belongs to a business: a team, group chats with suppliers or clients, Slack, meetings, and approvals you set app by app. Pick Poke if you want a free, proactive assistant for your own life in your texts.

What Cicada does that Poke doesn't.

Built for a business

Poke's terms license it for personal use only, and it supports one phone number per account. Cicada is a workspace: every member gets their own agents, apps the team shares are connected once, and personal logins like your inbox stay yours.

It's in the group chat

Poke's site doesn't describe group chats. Add Cicada to the WhatsApp or iMessage group with your team or suppliers and it keeps every message and file anyone posts, answers when someone names it, and chases the deadlines people set there.

A team behind the teammate

Ask Cicada for something big and a coordinator splits it between specialist agents that work at the same time, then hands you one answer. Teammates' agents share what they learn about the business and can ask each other.

Control you set per app

Set each app to Full, Ask first or Read-only for every agent, and anything waiting for you arrives as an approval in your thread. Poke's docs don't describe approvals, and its terms make you solely responsible for what it does.

About Poke

What it is: A personal assistant you text, connected to your email, calendar and apps, that messages you first. Made by The Interaction Company of California, acquired by Cognition in July 2026.
Where it works: Apple Messages (as a verified Messages for Business account), WhatsApp, Telegram and RCS
What it costs: Free (no card); Pro $19 a month; Ultra $199 a month with a monthly usage pool and Poke Human, a real person for calls, bookings and orders
Worth knowing: Its terms license it for personal use only, it supports one phone number per account, its site doesn't describe group chats, and your data can train its models unless you choose Maximum Privacy.

Checked against Poke's own pages on 3 November 2026. See every Poke alternative.

Where Poke fits in the market.

Personal AI assistants help one person with their own work.
Poke
Automation platforms automate the workflows you design.
Enterprise platforms build agents inside their own ecosystems.

Cicada gives your whole business a coordinated AI workforce that every employee can delegate to, through the tools they already use.

Cicada

A team of agents for a team of people.

Poke is one assistant for one person and one phone number. Cicada gives every person on a team their own agents, and they work together.

Agents for every person

Each person in your workspace gets their own agents. The apps the team shares are connected once; personal ones, like your inbox, stay under your own login.

A coordinator and specialists

A big job is split between specialists that work at the same time, and you get one answer back from the agent you asked.

Agents that work together

Teammates' agents know what each other covers, use each other's fresh figures and check with each other through the apps you share, never through anyone's private notes. Ask yours to message someone who uses Cicada, at your company or another, and their answer comes back to you.

Know-how the whole team shares

What one agent learns about the business, every agent in the workspace knows, and a skill one agent proves is shared with the rest.

Cicada and Poke, feature by feature.

Feature	Cicada	Poke
Agents across your team	Every person gets their own agents, a coordinator running specialists, and they work together across the team	One assistant per person; its terms allow personal use only
Where you use it	iMessage, WhatsApp, Slack, email and a web app	Apple Messages, WhatsApp, Telegram and RCS
Group chats	iMessage and WhatsApp groups: speaks when named, keeps every file, follows up on deadlines	Not described on its site
Specialist agents	A coordinator delegates to specialists that work in parallel	One assistant
Connected apps	1,400+, plus any MCP server and a live browser	Email, calendar and a few dozen apps through recipes, plus any MCP server by URL
Joins your meetings	On Business: Meet, Zoom, Teams and Webex, notes by text	Not that we could find (it can read Granola notes)
Approvals	Per app: Full, Ask first or Read-only, at the autonomy level you set	Not documented
Training on your data	Your workspace content isn't used to train models	Its privacy notice allows training unless you choose Maximum Privacy
Price	A 3-day free trial, then Starter at $29 a month (300 credits, 3 agents, one person), Growth at $99 (up to 10 people) or Business at $249 (no limit on people). Credits are shared across the workspace, with no charge per person.	Free; Pro $19 a month; Ultra $199 a month with a usage pool and Poke Human

Poke details checked against its own site and docs on 3 November 2026. Products change fast; see the sources below.

Your life, or your company's work

Poke is made to be personal: proactive, with a personality, helping one person with email, calendar and reminders. Cicada is made for a business: a workspace where every employee has a teammate and specialists do the work across the company's apps.

Where the conversation happens

Both are something you text. Cicada is also in the group chats where teams and suppliers actually talk, and in Slack channels, DMs and email, so the answer lands in the thread the work came from.

Meetings and control

On the Business plan, Cicada joins your Meet, Zoom, Teams and Webex calls and texts you the decisions. And any member decides how far it goes: each app is Full, Ask first or Read-only, for every agent.

Where Cicada is stronger

Every person on the team gets their own agents, and they work together.
A coordinator splits big jobs between specialists that work at the same time.
Group chats on iMessage and WhatsApp, with follow-ups on what people promised.
Slack, email and, on Business, a notetaker that joins your meetings.
A Full, Ask first or Read-only lock on every app, for every agent.
Your workspace content isn't used to train models.

Choose Cicada if you want an AI workforce for your business: teammates for each person, in your group chats, Slack and meetings, with a lock on every app.

Where Poke fits

Free to start, with no card.
A proactive, personal assistant that messages you first.
Poke Human on Ultra: a real person for calls, bookings and orders.
Websites it builds and publishes, and an email address of its own.

Poke may suit you if you want a free, proactive assistant for your own email, calendar and errands, in your texts.

Poke vs Cicada, answered.

Is Cicada a Poke alternative?

For work, yes. Poke is a personal assistant licensed for personal use; Cicada gives every person on a team agents that work together in your messages, group chats, Slack, email and meetings.

Can I use Poke for my business?

Its terms license it for personal use only, as of November 2026, and it supports one phone number per account. Cicada is built for a business, with a workspace, members and agents for each person.

Does Poke work in group chats?

Its site doesn't describe group chats. Cicada works in WhatsApp and iMessage groups: it keeps every message and file and answers when someone names it.

Who owns Poke?

Cognition bought The Interaction Company of California, Poke's maker, in July 2026. Cognition's post says users can keep using the product as before.

Sources, checked 3 November 2026

Spotted something out of date? Tell us at support@cicadalabs.io and we'll fix it.

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