Cluely vs Shortwave
A side-by-side comparison of capabilities, autonomy, integrations, and pricing to help you choose.
Short answer: choose Cluely if you want real-time desktop ai assistant for meetings, marketed as undetectable (Copilot, freemium); choose Shortwave if you want ai-native email client with an agent that searches, drafts, and organizes (Copilot, subscription).
| Cluely | Shortwave | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Real-time desktop AI assistant for meetings, marketed as undetectable | AI-native email client with an agent that searches, drafts, and organizes |
| Type | product-with-agents | product-with-agents |
| Autonomy | Copilot | Copilot |
| Pricing | freemium · Free tier; Pro reportedly $20/mo | subscription · $24/seat/mo (Business, billed annually) |
| Best for | consumers, smb, mid-market | smb, consumers, enterprise |
| Deployment | saas | saas |
| Modalities | text, voice | text, email |
| Models | model-agnostic | model-agnostic |
| Protocols | none | rest-api |
| Integrations | Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Webex | Gmail, Google Calendar |
| Capabilities | 4 documented | 4 documented |
Cluely
- +Fast, low-latency transcription and in-call suggestions across major meeting platforms
- +Useful legitimate deliverables: notes, recaps, and post-call coaching
- +Low barrier to try plus strong brand awareness
- -Core "undetectable" and "cheat" positioning creates ethical, academic-integrity, and employment risk
- -The "undetectable" claim is contested; interviewers can spot behavioral tells
Shortwave
- +Fast natural-language email search across years of mail
- +Clean Inbox-style UX from the team that built Google Inbox
- +Genuinely agentic actions, not just chat
- -Gmail-centric; non-Gmail support is narrower
- -Pricing is steep and annual-only ($24-$100/seat)
Which should you choose?
Cluely is real-time desktop ai assistant for meetings, marketed as undetectable, best for consumers, smb, mid-market. Shortwave is ai-native email client with an agent that searches, drafts, and organizes, best for smb, consumers, enterprise. The right choice depends on the autonomy level you want, your existing integrations, and your budget, all compared above.