7 Best Highlight AI Alternatives in 2026
Highlight AI (highlightai.com) pitches itself as a “shared intelligence layer for the agentic age of work,” a team brain that sits above tools like Slack, Zoom, Linear, Gmail, and Claude Code, captures the decisions and commitments flowing through them, and then drafts follow-ups, syncs docs, and runs trigger-based workflows so coordination work stops eating into everyone’s week. It’s a Mac desktop app, so it lives on one machine rather than meeting you wherever you work. If you want something that captures context, tracks commitments, and acts across your tools from any device, here are seven Highlight AI alternatives worth considering.
TL;DR: The best Highlight AI alternative for most people is Carly. It starts at $35/month, works over email and text on any device, and acts on threads as its own address across 200+ tools, so it follows up, books meetings, and updates your stack on its own instead of waiting in a desktop app. For a shared-knowledge “team brain,” look at Glean. For trigger-based workflow automation, Zapier.
1. Carly
Carly is an AI agent platform where each agent has its own real email address. You text or email it to assign work, or CC it on threads with clients, prospects, teammates, or vendors, and it replies to them directly, books meetings, tracks what was promised, and updates your tools across 200+ integrations. You can run specialized agents for scheduling, sales, or ops, each with its own memory and access.
What makes it different from Highlight AI: Highlight is a Mac app that watches your tools and stages outputs for you to approve on one machine. Carly lives in email and text, so it works on any device with nothing to install, and it actually sends and acts as itself on real threads, doing the follow-through instead of just preparing it for you. You tell it what you want in plain language and it builds the workflow for you.
Best for: Professionals and teams who want an agent that captures commitments and does the follow-through across their tools, on whatever device they’re on.
Pricing: Free, unlimited Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/month
2. Glean
Glean (glean.com) is an enterprise work assistant that indexes everything across your company’s apps and answers questions, surfaces context, and powers agents on top of that shared knowledge.
What makes it different from Highlight AI: Glean is the closest match for Highlight’s “shared intelligence layer” idea, a true company-wide brain, but it’s enterprise-scale, search-first, and sold to IT rather than a desktop app for individuals and small teams. See Glean alternatives.
Best for: Larger orgs that want a searchable shared knowledge layer across every tool.
Pricing: Enterprise (custom)
3. Dust
Dust (dust.tt) lets teams build and deploy AI agents on top of their company data and tools, with a marketplace of role-specific assistants.
What makes it different from Highlight AI: Dust is about building your own agents on shared company context, where Highlight ships a packaged capture-and-act experience. If you want to assemble custom team agents rather than adopt a fixed product, Dust fits. See Dust alternatives.
Best for: Teams that want to build their own agents on internal knowledge.
Pricing: From ~$29/user/month
4. Lindy
An AI executive assistant that triages your inbox, drafts in your voice, schedules, takes notes, and runs proactive workflows with alerts over iMessage.
What makes it different from Highlight AI: Lindy overlaps heavily on the “catch commitments and act” promise, but it’s built around an individual’s inbox and calendar rather than a team-wide shared memory, and it runs across desktop and mobile rather than a single Mac app. See Lindy alternatives and our Carly vs Lindy comparison.
Best for: People who want a proactive personal EA with workflow automation.
Pricing: 7-day free trial; from $49.99/month
5. Granola
Granola (granola.ai) is an AI notepad that joins your meetings, captures what was said, and turns it into clean notes and action items afterward.
What makes it different from Highlight AI: Granola nails the “capture” half of Highlight, the meeting-to-action-items loop, but stops there. It doesn’t run cross-tool workflows or maintain a shared team memory across Slack and Linear. Pair it with automation if you want the “act” half. See Granola alternatives.
Best for: People who mainly want meetings captured and turned into next steps.
Pricing: Free plan; paid from ~$18/month
6. Notion AI
Notion AI layers search, writing, and Q&A over your connected workspace and the apps you link to it, turning Notion into a queryable team knowledge base.
What makes it different from Highlight AI: Notion AI centralizes knowledge in one workspace you maintain, where Highlight tries to capture context automatically across the tools you already use. If your team already lives in Notion, the AI meets you there. See Notion AI alternatives.
Best for: Teams whose source of truth already lives in Notion.
Pricing: Add-on from ~$10/member/month
7. Zapier
Zapier (zapier.com) connects thousands of apps with trigger-based automations, the closest off-the-shelf match for Highlight’s “Skills” (define a trigger, run a sequence).
What makes it different from Highlight AI: Zapier is pure plumbing, you define every trigger and step explicitly, with no meeting capture or commitment tracking. Highlight aims to infer the workflows; Zapier makes you wire them, but it works with everything across the web. See Zapier alternatives.
Best for: Teams that want explicit, reliable workflow automation across many apps.
Pricing: Free plan; paid from ~$19.99/month
Highlight AI Alternatives Compared
| Tool | Captures context | Acts across tools | Works on any device | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carly | Yes (threads + commitments) | Yes (sends as itself, 200+) | Yes (email + text, anywhere) | Starts at $35/mo |
| Glean | Yes (search index) | Some (agents) | Yes (browser) | Enterprise |
| Dust | Yes (company data) | Yes (custom agents) | Yes (browser) | From ~$29/user/mo |
| Lindy | Some | Yes (drafts/workflows) | Yes (desktop + mobile) | From $49.99/mo |
| Granola | Yes (meetings only) | No | Yes | Free; from ~$18/mo |
| Notion AI | Yes (workspace) | Some | Yes (browser) | From ~$10/member/mo |
| Zapier | No | Yes (explicit triggers) | Yes (browser) | Free; from ~$19.99/mo |
| Highlight AI | Yes | Yes (staged for review) | No (Mac desktop app) | — |
FAQ
What’s the best Highlight AI alternative? For the shared “team brain” idea, Glean is the closest. For an assistant that captures commitments and does the follow-through for you, Carly, because it acts on real threads and across 200+ tools from any device instead of staging outputs in a Mac app.
Which Highlight AI alternative works on Windows? Carly, Glean, Dust, Notion AI, and Zapier all work anywhere, since they run in email or the browser rather than a Mac-only desktop app. Carly works anywhere you have email or text.
Does a Highlight AI alternative need to capture meetings and run workflows? Carly does both in one place, tracking what’s promised on a thread and then following up across your tools. Granola covers capture, and Zapier covers workflow automation, if you only need one half.
More: Best AI agent platforms · Best AI agents for productivity · Best AI workflow automation tools · What Carly can do
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