Carly vs the Gemini Agent: Which Work Agent Fits?
Google’s Gemini agent, announced October 8, 2026, takes an objective, works across your company’s apps for hours or days, and can create “coworker agents” with their own Workspace account and email address. Carly is an AI assistant and agent builder that works inside your email, calendar and the apps your business runs on.
Both are agents that keep working when you aren’t watching. They’re built for very different buyers.
The quick answer: the Gemini agent if you’re a large company on Gemini Enterprise with an admin team to roll it out, and you’re happy to wait for a quote. Carly if you want an agent working in your inbox and calendar this week, across Gmail and Outlook at once, with a price on the page. Free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/month.
Carly vs the Gemini agent at a glance
| Carly | Gemini agent | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | People and teams running email, calendar, CRM and client work | Company-wide deployments on Gemini Enterprise |
| How you get it | Sign up yourself | Through your company’s Google Cloud admin |
| Email and calendar | Every Gmail and Outlook account and calendar you have, side by side | Workspace first; also runs in Microsoft 365 and Slack |
| Agents with their own email address | Yes, every agent you build | Yes, coworker agents on an @agents company address |
| What starts work | A new email, meeting request, form, call, text or schedule | Assigned objectives, schedules or events |
| Apps it reaches | Thousands of apps | Workspace, Microsoft 365, Slack, Salesforce, Jira and more, plus MCP servers |
| Where you talk to it | Web, text message, email, ChatGPT, Claude | Web, mobile, desktop, command line, Workspace, Microsoft 365, Slack |
| Pricing | Free workflows; agents from $35/mo | Not published |
What the Gemini agent is built for
The Gemini agent is Google’s “single, universal agent for work.” You give it objectives rather than instructions, and it plans the work, uses your company’s systems and runs in the cloud until it’s finished. It routes each job to a model, across Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude models. Admins get per-agent identities, an audit trail of every action, a sandbox and a policy gateway. Our explainer covers it in detail: what is the Gemini agent.
The headline feature is the coworker agent. Describe a role and Gemini creates an agent with its own Workspace account, email address, calendar and Drive, and a place in your company directory. Your colleagues @mention it in Chat or tag it in a doc comment.
Google is rolling it out to businesses first and consumers later, and hasn’t published a price.
What Carly is built for
Carly’s day starts in your inbox. Connect every Google and Microsoft account you have, and it triages, drafts replies in your voice and sends them from the right address. It finds times across all of your calendars, with booking pages for the people who need a slot, and moves the deal in your CRM when the meeting is booked.
Then come workflows, which you describe in plain English. An email from a key client, a form submission, a missed call, a Monday at 8am: each can start a run, with an AI step in the middle. Every agent you build gets its own email address, so clients can write to it directly.
Google and Microsoft, or Google first
The Gemini agent is a Google product first. It works inline across Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Calendar and the rest of Workspace, and Google says it also runs in Microsoft 365 and Slack.
Carly treats Google and Microsoft the same. Michael, an independent consultant, has a Gmail for his own firm and an Outlook account from his biggest client. Carly reads both inboxes, sees both calendars when it offers meeting times, and replies from whichever address the client wrote to. No admin, no Workspace migration.
Who has to say yes
Getting the Gemini agent runs through your company’s Google Cloud and Workspace admins: identities, permissions, spending caps and policies are set centrally. That’s the right model for a bank or a law firm, and Google’s industry versions for financial services and legal are already in preview.
Carly is self-serve. Connect your accounts, describe the agent, test it on a real email, and decide whether it sends on its own or drafts for your approval.
Pricing
Google hasn’t published a price for the Gemini agent; it’s sold through Gemini Enterprise, with spending caps per project in the Cloud Billing Console. Carly runs Zapier-style workflows free, and AI agents start at $35 a month. Get started here.
Which one to choose
- You’re an enterprise on Gemini Enterprise and want one governed agent across the company: the Gemini agent.
- You want an agent in your inbox and calendar this week: Carly.
- You use both Gmail and Outlook: Carly.
- You need a price before you start: Carly.
Weighing more options? See Gemini agent alternatives.
FAQ
Is Carly an alternative to the Gemini agent?
Yes, for email, calendar and follow-up work. Carly connects every Gmail and Outlook account you have, starts on new emails and meeting requests, and reaches thousands of other apps, with no enterprise rollout.
Can I use Carly and the Gemini agent together?
Yes. Some companies will roll out the Gemini agent for internal knowledge work while individuals use Carly for their own inbox, calendar and client follow-ups, especially across non-Google accounts.
Does Carly give agents their own email address like Gemini’s coworker agents?
Yes. Every agent you build in Carly gets its own email address and knowledge files, so it can run an inbox like support@ or intake@ and answer from your docs.
Does the Gemini agent work with Outlook?
Google says the Gemini agent runs in Microsoft 365 as well as Workspace. Carly connects Outlook and Gmail accounts side by side and sends from whichever one the conversation started in.
How much does the Gemini agent cost compared with Carly?
Google hasn’t published Gemini agent pricing. Carly’s Zapier-style workflows are free and AI agents start at $35 a month.
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See what people say
"Before Carly, I relied on a Calendly link, but the whole process felt impersonal and not very professional. Carly changed that by handling all the back-and-forth, so I'm no longer stuck in endless email threads trying to line up schedules.
Now Carly reaches out to candidates, shares my real-time availability, lets them pick a slot, then sends a Zoom link and drops it straight into my calendar. She sends reminders to both of us before each call, which has significantly reduced no-shows and last-minute confusion.
On top of scheduling, Carly acts like a full executive assistant, sending me my schedule the night before so I can prepare for each call. It reminds me of the old x.ai assistant, but Carly is noticeably smarter, faster, and better suited to my healthcare recruitment business."
