4 AI Agents That Live in Your Texts, and Every One Starts Free

You don't need a $100 subscription to get an AI agent. Folk, Pally, Rene and Ohai all live in your texts, and all four start free. You save one as a contact, text it like a friend, and it does the errand: watching a flight price, sending you only the emails that need you, booking a table, or turning a recipe into a shopping list.

For comparison, ChatGPT's own agent, dots, is only on the Pro and Business Premium plans, and Pro starts at $100 a month.

Below is where each agent works, what its free plan covers, and the first text to send it. Prices and free limits were checked on 26 October 2026.

How do you start texting an AI agent?

Each one is a contact in your phone. Save it, text it like a friend, and it does the errand. All four start free.

Folk

1. Works on: iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram (WhatsApp is switching on country by country).
2. Free plan: every feature, up to 100 messages a day.
3. Good for: things that need watching, like flight prices, and booking things for you.

Tell me when flights from [your city] to London drop under [price] in [month].

Pally

1. Works on: iMessage or RCS, WhatsApp, Telegram. Reading your own iMessages needs its Mac app; WhatsApp links through Linked Devices.
2. Free plan: free with a weekly usage limit that refills.
3. Good for: a morning text with only the emails that matter, and catching up on busy WhatsApp groups.

Every morning at 8, text me only the emails that need a reply.

Rene

1. Works on: Messages, WhatsApp, Telegram.
2. Free plan: free to start, no card needed.
3. Good for: finding and booking things once you approve, and agreeing a time with someone else's Rene.

Find a table for two near [area] on Friday around 8 and book it when I say yes.

Ohai

1. Works on: text messages, plus its app and forwarded email.
2. Free plan: reminders, meal planning and lists. The shared family calendar is Premium ($9.99 a month).
3. Good for: shopping lists and reminders without opening another app.

[send a screenshot of a recipe] Add these ingredients to my shopping list.

Free plans and country support change often, so check each one's site before you rely on it.

What can each AI agent do over text?

Folk: watch a price while you sleep

Folk, from Nozomio Labs, gets its own private computer in the cloud. It can track flights, watch prices, book tables and manage your email and calendar, and it keeps working while you're asleep, then texts you when something changes. The free plan includes every feature, 100 messages a day and up to three things running in the background at once.

Pally: only the emails that need you

Pally sends you a short morning brief with your day, your inbox and the things you said you'd do. Connect WhatsApp and it reads the group chats that piled up and hands you the lines that matter. It checks with you before it sends, books or buys anything you haven't already asked for or approved. It works over iMessage or RCS, WhatsApp and Telegram.

Rene: a table booked the moment you say yes

Ask Rene for dinner nearby and it checks the restaurant's site, offers you a table, and books it when you say yes. It can also plan with a friend's Rene to find a night you're both free. On an iPhone you can text it from Messages, and on Android you use WhatsApp or Telegram.

Ohai: a recipe turned into a shopping list

You can text Ohai, forward it an email, or send it a screenshot, PDF or photo, and it turns what you send into events, reminders, tasks and lists. Its meal planning builds the grocery list for you. Reminders, meal planning and lists are on the free version, and the shared calendar is on Premium, from $9.99 a month.

Can these AI agents read your messages?

Only what you give them, according to each company. Here's what each one says:

• Folk sees only your chat with it, or a group chat you've added it to. It says your messages are never sold or used to train AI models.
• Pally only uses the apps you connect. If you link WhatsApp, it can read your chats and reply in them for you.
• Rene says what you share isn't used to train AI models, and it connects to email and calendar with delegated access, so it never sees your password.
• Ohai only accesses the sources you authorise and never sells your data. Its human assistants can step in to sort out a complicated document.

So connect only what the errand needs.

For the settings that stop ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini training on your chats, see our AI chat privacy settings. To find the jobs costing your team the most time, take the free AI bottleneck test, or read our insights on AI implementation.