Kerna vs Serif

Kerna is an AI email assistant for Gmail and Outlook on macOS, Windows, and the web. At a user’s request, it sorts open messages into categories such as Urgent, Respond, Invoice, Waiting, and Notification; users can also set custom categories and industry taxonomies. It drafts replies based on the full thread, with controls for intent and tone, and makes structured thread summaries for conversations of up to 50 messages. It can summarize attachments, extract selected fields into exportable tables, and translate inbound messages and outbound replies in 45 languages. Integrations include Calendar, Contacts, and Sheets as well as Gmail and Outlook. Kerna says it acts only when a user initiates a request, processes content in memory, discards it afterward, and redacts personal data before it reaches the inference provider. Its trust information reports TLS 1.2 or higher in transit and AES-256 encryption at rest. Kerna has a free plan; paid plans start at €12/mo. Outlook requires a Microsoft-hosted mailbox; POP or IMAP and on-premises Exchange are unsupported.

Serif places an AI employee in shared email addresses such as info@, support@ and billing@ to handle routine messages. It connects to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, or can work with an address of its own. The assistant can qualify and route inquiries, answer common questions, collect paperwork, send quotes and follow up on unpaid invoices. Ambiguous or sensitive messages are escalated to the team, and users can approve replies before allowing independent operation. The shared inbox page offers $100 in free credits without a credit card, and each plan includes a 7-day free trial with full access. Listed plans include Lite at $30 a month, Standard at $50 a month, Pro at $200 a month, and Team at $50 a month per user; each is billed monthly. Serif says it is SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR and HIPAA compliant, and that emails are neither used to train general AI models nor stored on its servers. Apps are listed for web, macOS, Windows and iOS; Android is coming soon.