Ari vs Clara

Ari is an AI scheduling assistant that users CC on an email thread to find times that work for participants and arrange meetings. With permission, it reads Google Calendar and Microsoft 365 calendars and can create, update, or cancel events. It processes email content in threads where it is copied to identify scheduling requests. Listed services include Gmail, Outlook, Google Calendar, Microsoft 365, Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Ari's Mac and iPhone apps can record and transcribe meetings, summarize them, and help book follow-ups; recording starts only when the user presses record. The macOS app keeps recordings and transcripts on the device unless cloud features are used. The Free plan allows 10 meetings total and one Google and one Microsoft calendar. Basic costs $24/mo, and Premium costs $39/mo. The maker says email content is sent to Anthropic’s Claude API for scheduling-intent processing and is not retained beyond what is needed to complete the request. Ari may misunderstand intent or suggest incorrect times, so users must review and confirm meetings.

Clara is a web-based AI scheduling assistant that manages meeting arrangements through email. It reads email threads, proposes times, handles replies, and confirms meetings; if invitees do not respond, it follows up in the thread. For rescheduling, it finds another time, cancels the original invite, and sends an updated one. It also coordinates group meetings, tracks participant responses, and supports calls across time zones. Users can set scheduling windows, buffer times, meeting types, priority contacts, and communication preferences. Clara works natively with Google Workspace and Microsoft Outlook and Exchange; its homepage also displays Zoom and Teams among associated tools. The maker says no human reads scheduling emails and that customer data is not used to train its models. Its privacy policy names OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google as AI providers that may receive email and calendar content to generate responses. The Free plan is free for 14 days and five meetings. Standard is $80 a month for 30 meetings; the free-plan limit stops further scheduling until upgrade.