Boba (getboba.ai) is an AI assistant that lives inside the Messages app you already have — iMessage on iPhone, Google Messages (RCS/SMS) on Android. There's no app to download and no sign-up: you text a number and your first message is your registration. It works one-on-one and, notably, inside group chats, where it hangs back during normal chatter and only jumps in when asked to pick a restaurant, plan a trip, settle a debate, make an image, or even write a song. It's marketed as free with no ads or subscription.

Who else makes an AI you can text like Boba?

It's a crowded space. Sidekicks works over iMessage and SMS with switchable personas and a free tier. Poke (The Interaction Company of California) covers iMessage, SMS, Telegram and some WhatsApp. Arlo (arlo.sh) does real tool actions like booking tables and running group polls across many channels. Text.ai (branded 'Affi') specifically targets keeping group chats alive. They differ mainly on channels, whether they take real-world actions, and free-vs-paid.

Can I build my own texting AI for free?

Largely, yes. With OpenClaw you can connect an AI agent to SMS via Twilio or to native iMessage via the imsg bridge (or BlueBubbles), including group chats, with memory keyed per conversation. The software is open-source; your only real costs are a phone number / Twilio per-message fees (pennies) and your LLM API usage. A Mac is required for native iMessage; SMS works anywhere.

What's the catch with 'free' texting AIs like Boba?

Your messages are the product input. Boba's own notice says messages are stored for memory and 'may be used to improve our AI and future products.' It says it won't sell them to advertisers or train third-party models, but you're still handing group-chat content to a startup. Self-hosting is the privacy-preserving alternative if that trade-off bothers you.

Boba and the Race to Put an AI in Your Group Chat — And How to Build One Yourself for Free

By Prahlad Menon Published 2026-10-19 5 min read

Open your Messages app. That’s the whole pitch. No download, no login, no $20/month — just text a number and an AI is suddenly in the thread with you and your friends. That’s Boba, and it’s the clearest expression yet of a bet a lot of startups are now making: the AI assistant of the future doesn’t live in a new app, it lives where you already talk.

Worth a look? Yes — both as a product trend and because the DIY version is surprisingly within reach.

What Boba Actually Does

Boba bills itself as “not artificial intelligence — social intelligence,” and the framing is deliberate. The headline feature isn’t raw IQ, it’s knowing when to shut up. In a group chat it hangs back during normal banter and only jumps in when someone needs it: find a cabin under $400, pick the restaurant everyone will actually like, settle a debate, find the time that works across five calendars. It also does the generative-toy stuff — edit a photo, describe an image and get it made, turn the cabin trip into a 20-second indie-folk song.

The mechanics are the clever part:

No app, no sign-up. It lives in iMessage on iPhone and Google Messages (RCS/SMS) on Android. Your first text is your registration; an invite code rides along automatically.
Group-native. Text it 1:1 once, then add its number to any group like a normal contact. It learns the group’s style and you can kick it out anytime.
Free. No subscription, no ads — which, as always, should make you ask who’s paying.

It’s a Crowded Thread

Boba is not alone. The “AI you can text” category has quietly filled up, and the players mostly differ on three axes: which channels they cover, whether they take real-world actions, and free vs. paid:

Sidekicks — iMessage + SMS, group chats, switchable personas (assistant, coach, companion), limited free tier. The easiest pure-chat experience, light on real actions.
Poke (The Interaction Company of California) — iMessage, SMS, Telegram, some WhatsApp. Billion-dollar-backed, launched publicly March 2026.
Arlo (arlo.sh) — the action-heavy one: books flights and tables, makes calls and waits on hold, uses websites with your logins, runs polls in group chats. Reachable via iMessage, SMS, WhatsApp, Slack, Teams, or phone.
Text.ai / “Affi” — specifically pitched at keeping group chats alive, one of the few explicitly in the group-chat niche with Boba.

So Boba’s real differentiation is less “smarter model” and more polish on the social-timing + zero-friction-onboarding + genuinely free combination. That’s a product/distribution moat, not a technical one — which is exactly why the DIY angle is interesting.

The Practical Part: Build Your Own for (Almost) Free

Here’s the thing none of these landing pages will tell you: the core capability — an AI agent that lives in SMS and iMessage group chats with per-conversation memory — is open-source and self-hostable today. The pattern we’d use:

Option A — SMS anywhere, via OpenClaw + Twilio. OpenClaw normalizes every channel into the same agent interface — text, attachments, metadata, a channel ID, and a conversation identifier — and keeps memory keyed per channel/conversation so SMS threads don’t contaminate your other chats. Point a Twilio number at it and you’ve got a textable agent. Cost: a Twilio number (~$1/mo) + per-message pennies + your LLM API usage. No Mac required.

Option B — Native iMessage + group chats, via the imsg bridge (or BlueBubbles). OpenClaw has native iMessage support through imsg (JSON-RPC over stdio), with private-API actions for replies, tapbacks, effects, polls, attachments, and group management. This is what gets you the real Boba-style experience: blue bubbles, group threads, tapbacks. The catch is you need a Mac signed into iMessage to host it. BlueBubbles is the older route; OpenClaw now recommends the native imsg path and migrating off BlueBubbles.

The “social intelligence / knows when to stay quiet” behavior? That’s a system-prompt problem, and it’s one we’ve literally already solved in our own group-chat guidance — respond when mentioned or when you add value, stay silent during banter. Boba productized a prompt discipline you can replicate in an afternoon.

The honest trade-offs:

Boba/Poke/Arlo win on zero-friction onboarding. “Open Messages, send hello” beats “spin up a Mac mini, configure imsg, wire Twilio.” For non-technical users, that gap is the whole business.
Self-hosting wins on privacy and control. Boba’s own fine print: messages are stored for memory and “may be used to improve our AI and future products.” For a group chat — other people’s messages — that’s a real consideration. A self-hosted agent keeps the thread on hardware you own.
Cost is a wash at small scale, flips at large scale. Free hosted tiers are great until they’re metered or monetized; self-hosting is a few dollars a month regardless.

The Takeaway: It’s a Weekend Project Now

Boba on its own is a slick consumer app. But the more useful story is the one underneath it: an AI in your group chat is now a weekend project, not a funded startup. The hosted players are selling onboarding and polish; the open-source stack gives you the same capability with your data staying put.

If the pitch of “an assistant that lives where you already text, and jumps in only when useful” resonates — and judging by how many companies are chasing it, it does — the practical move isn’t to pick one of them. It’s to stand up your own with OpenClaw + Twilio (for reach) or imsg (for the real iMessage group experience), and write the “read the room” prompt yourself.

Boba: getboba.ai · DIY stack: OpenClaw iMessage/SMS channels