Arlo vs Martin — which AI assistant fits your work?

Both Martin and Arlo are assistants you talk to like a person. They're built for different jobs. Martin is a personal, voice-first assistant you reach by call, text, or email to run your own calendar, inbox, reminders, and tasks. Arlo is an AI colleague for work. It lives in the channels your team already uses, takes real actions through governed tool access, and logs everything it does.

The short version: if you want a proactive assistant for your own day, Martin is a strong consumer pick. If you want something your whole team can lean on inside the tools it already runs, with reviewer approvals and admin controls, that's Arlo.

What Martin is (as of June 2026)

Martin (trymartin.com) pitches itself as a personal AI assistant "like Jarvis." As of June 2026, you can reach it by voice, SMS, WhatsApp, email, phone, and Slack, plus an iOS and web app. It handles your calendar, inbox, phone calls, to-dos, reminders, and notes, and it picks up your preferences over time so it can schedule meetings, draft emails, fire off texts, and make calls for you.

On integrations, Martin connects to Google Calendar, iCloud Calendar, Gmail, SMS, phone calling, WhatsApp, and Slack. Pricing as of June 2026 is a 7-day free trial, a Basic plan, and a Pro plan that layers on premium models, email pre-drafting, and long-term memory. It's a product for one person managing their own day, and it's clearly designed that way.

What Arlo is

Arlo is one AI colleague for the whole workspace. It works inside the tools a team already uses — iMessage and SMS, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and live phone calls — so nobody has to learn a new chat app. It keeps persistent memory, sends a morning briefing of what changed overnight, and connects to Slack, Gmail, Notion, Linear, GitHub, and 3,000+ other tools.

When a tool has no API, Arlo logs in once through a secure browser session and clicks, reads, and fills out forms the way a person would. Governance comes standard, not as an upsell. Every connection runs through policy before each turn, and any draft, send, or write waits on a reviewer you pick. Each tool call, source, and approval lands in a full audit trace.

Personal voice assistant vs team AI colleague

The real split is who the assistant works for. Martin is voice-first and personal, organized around one person's calendar, inbox, and reminders. Arlo takes that same conversational, action-taking feel into shared work channels and wraps it in the controls a team actually needs.

In practice that means reviewer approvals before anything goes out, admin policy and roles, and an audit trail showing what happened, why, and who signed off. If you're an individual, that's probably more machinery than you want. If your team shares accounts and touches customer-facing work, it's exactly the part you can't skip.

Feature comparison

Capability	Martin	Arlo
Built for	Individuals (personal productivity)	Teams and businesses
Primary channels	Voice, SMS, WhatsApp, email, Slack, app	iMessage/SMS, Slack, Microsoft Teams, phone calls
Calendar, inbox, reminders	Yes	Yes
Persistent memory	Yes (Pro)	Yes, plus morning briefing
Tool connections	Calendar, Gmail, Slack, WhatsApp	Slack, Gmail, Notion, Linear, GitHub + 3,000+ tools
No-API tools via browser	Not stated	Yes — secure browser session
Reviewer approvals before actions	Not stated	Yes, by default
Audit trace of every action	Not stated	Yes
Admin policy, roles, SSO, audit export	Not stated	Yes (Business plan)

Facts about Martin reflect its public positioning as of June 2026 and may change.

Which should you choose?

Pick Martin if you want a personal, voice-first assistant for your own calendar, inbox, and errands and you don't need shared team controls. It's a focused consumer product with a simple monthly plan.

Pick Arlo if you want an AI assistant for founders, realtors, or sales teams that takes real actions inside Slack, Teams, iMessage, and calls, with the approvals and audit trail a team needs. Arlo's Team plan is usage-based; the Business plan adds admin policy, roles, SSO, and audit export. You can also compare Arlo vs Poke or browse other Poke alternatives and our resources.

Try Arlo

Want one AI colleague your whole team can trust across the tools it already uses? Start with Arlo. You get conversational action-taking across iMessage, Slack, Teams, and calls, with governance, approvals, and a full audit trail built in.