Norma vs the other assistants

The closest thing to Norma. Same interface idea: no app, you text or call it. It launched in August 2026 with real completed tasks from well-known early users, raised $250 million at a $2.5 billion valuation, and is still invite-only. The same week, researchers showed prompt injection working, emails going out unconfirmed, and terms that grant a perpetual licence to your data. Instinct will get better fast. Norma's bet is that people want the same thing with a slower hand: nothing sent without a yes, nothing claimed that is not verified, and a real off switch.

Pick it if: you have an invite, you are in the US, and you want the most capable agent regardless of the guardrails.

Meta's personal agent launched on 8 September 2026 and was the number two app in the US within two days. It lives in WhatsApp and its own app, runs tasks in an isolated virtual computer you can watch, and asks before it spends or sends. Free for most people, $20 or $100 a month for heavy use. US only, adults only, and it arrived two weeks after Meta's $18 billion settlement over harms to children, so the trust question is open. It is the strongest reason for Norma to exist in Europe: the same idea, from a company that is not an ad business.

Pick it if: you are in the US, live in WhatsApp, and are comfortable giving Meta the keys.

Apple's rebuilt Siri arrived with iOS 27 on 14 September 2026. It understands what is on your screen and can act across apps, and it runs on the phone you already own. It needs an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, it is English-only, and it is not available in the EU. It does not follow up on things over days, and it does not message you first.

Pick it if: you are outside the EU, on a recent iPhone, and want a better Siri rather than an assistant with its own memory of your open loops.

The best general model, and a good place to think. It is not a personal assistant living in your messages: OpenAI's WhatsApp service was shut down in January 2026 when Meta banned general assistants from the platform, and scheduled tasks live inside the ChatGPT app. Memory is good but flat: it does not distinguish what you said from what it guessed.

Pick it if: you want the strongest model for questions and writing, and you are fine opening an app.

Deeply tied into Gmail, Calendar and Android, which makes it strong at anything that already lives in Google. Like ChatGPT, it is an app you open rather than a contact that texts you, and it will not carry a task across days unless you set it up as a scheduled action.

Pick it if: your life is in Google Workspace and you use Android.

Amazon's agent for the home. It can book a table through OpenTable and control the house in plain language, and it is free with Prime. Reviewers found the agentic parts unreliable (wrong addresses confirmed as right), the app slow, and memory patchy. US only.

Pick it if: you already own Echo devices and mostly want a better voice assistant for the home.

Open source, self-hosted, and very capable if you are technical. Version 2.0 shipped in September 2026 with simpler setup and support for WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, iMessage and Slack. You run the server, you hold the keys, you own the security. Instinct's early fans called it “OpenClaw for normal people”. Norma is that, without the server.

Pick it if: you are a developer and want full control.

Lindy is an AI employee for work admin: inbox triage, meeting prep, drafting, CRM updates. It reaches you over iMessage and Slack and can join your Zoom calls. Strong for solopreneurs, from $49.99 a month plus credits. It is built for your work inbox, not for the dentist, the landlord and the wine Erik liked.

Pick it if: you want an assistant for your business inbox and are fine paying per task.

Manus is an autonomous agent in a sandboxed computer that browses and researches on its own. Good for one-off deep research. Every session starts from zero, there are no scheduled tasks, and reliability drops sharply past five steps. Ownership has been unresolved since Chinese regulators unwound Meta's acquisition in April 2026.

Pick it if: you want a research intern for a single task, not an assistant that remembers you.