Shortwave
A Gmail client with an AI assistant built in that searches your inbox, summarises long threads, and drafts replies in your own tone.
What you'd use it for
Finding a buried answer in your own inbox and getting a reply drafted in your voice, without leaving the Gmail account you already run your business on.
- Ask a plain-English question about your own mail history and get an answer with a link back to the specific thread it came from
- Get a one-click draft reply written in your own phrasing, learned from your past sent mail
- Have a long thread condensed into a short summary before you open it
- Set up AI-powered filters that sort or act on incoming mail against rules you describe in plain English
- Run a semantic search across years of mail instead of guessing at the exact keywords used
The verdict
Shortwave is genuinely good at the two things that matter in an inbox — finding an old email and drafting a plausible reply to a new one — and it does both faster than switching to a separate AI tab. It only works on top of Gmail or Google Workspace, there is no permanent free tier, and the gap between the cheap and expensive plans is mostly usage volume and model quality rather than new capability. It suits someone whose whole business already runs on Gmail and who spends real hours a day inside their inbox; it does nothing for anyone on Outlook.
What it costs
| Tier | Price | For | Includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business | $30 per seat/month | One person wanting AI search and drafting inside their existing Gmail. | Standard-tier AI, roughly 150-300 AI requests/day, 5 years of AI search history, AI-powered filters, AI autocomplete and summaries. |
| Premier | $45 per seat/month | Someone using AI email assistance heavily throughout the day. | Advanced-tier AI, 2x the usage of Business, unlimited AI search history, more AI-powered filters, 2x context for answers. |
| Max | $120 per seat/month | Power users who want the strongest available model on every request. | Claude Opus with adaptive thinking, 6x the usage of Business, 50 AI-powered filters, 3x context tokens. |
Read from Shortwave's own pricing page on 25 Sep 2026. Vendors change prices without notice.
What you need to start
- A Gmail or Google Workspace account — Shortwave only signs in with Google; Outlook, Exchange, iCloud and other providers are not supported directly, only by forwarding mail into a Gmail address first
A few minutes to sign in and start the 14-day free trial with no card required; the paid plan needs a card once the trial ends.
Your first run Sign in with your Gmail or Google Workspace account and Shortwave imports your existing inbox; the AI assistant is usable within minutes, and your first AI search or one-click draft reply is immediate once your mail has synced.
Where it breaks
This is a client on top of Gmail specifically; there is no indication it currently supports Outlook or other providers, so the fit depends on which email platform your business already runs.
Runs as a layer on top of an existing Gmail account rather than replacing it — a separate app and web client, not a Gmail plugin. Built by former Google Inbox engineers, and it shows in the interaction design.
First entry in this reference. There is no previous check to compare it against.
When not to use it
Anyone whose business mail runs on Outlook, Microsoft 365, Exchange or iCloud: Shortwave only signs in with Google, and forwarding another provider into Gmail is a workaround, not a fix. Also not for someone who checks email a few times a week — the AI assistant earns its subscription on volume, not on occasional use.
Shortwave is what Google Inbox might have become if it had kept getting built after Google killed it — several of its engineers left to build this. The core bet is that Gmail’s search and thread view stopped being good enough once inboxes became the place work actually happens, and that an AI layer belongs inside the client itself rather than as a separate tab you paste emails into.
What the AI actually does day to day
Ask it a question about your own inbox — “what did the vendor say about the contract renewal” — and it searches across your mail history and answers with citations back to the specific threads, rather than you scrolling and guessing at search terms. It also drafts replies matched to how you actually write, summarises threads that have gotten too long to read start to finish, and can act on filtered views of mail with AI-powered rules.
Which tier actually matters
The jump from Business to Premier buys meaningfully more usage and a better model, which shows up fastest for anyone treating this as their primary way of triaging email rather than an occasional assist. Max, running Claude Opus specifically, is a real step up in reasoning quality on genuinely hard email tasks — worth it only if you’re hitting the limits or quality ceiling of the lower tiers.
Against Superhuman, the two compete directly on the same premise — a faster, AI-augmented Gmail client — and the honest differentiator is which interaction model you personally get along with, best judged in a trial rather than from a features list.
Alternatives
Email & outreachAppsSuperhuman
A fast email client that drafts replies in your voice and is built to be cleared entirely by keyboard, without touching the mouse.
Email & outreachAppsMissive
A shared team inbox for email, SMS and social messages, with AI drafting replies and summarising long threads before anyone opens them.
Support & inboxAgentsFront
A shared team inbox for email and other channels, with AI drafting replies, tagging conversations and summarising long threads for anyone on the team.
Get Shortwave
Buying the tool is not the hard part.
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