Overview
- Apple approved Poke to run inside Messages for Business on Thursday, letting the startup respond to user requests directly in iMessage rather than as a separate App Store app.
- To win approval Poke had to show live‑support capability, clearly label AI responses, and adapt its interface to Apple’s messaging and design rules, a process the company says took months.
- Poke offers text‑based actions such as replying to email, scheduling events, editing images, controlling smart‑home devices, and linking with services like Outlook, Gmail, GitHub, Oura, Philips Hue, and Sonos.
- The Interaction Company says Poke has processed about 100 million messages since its March launch and will pay Apple a per‑user fee to operate on the platform while rolling optional iMessage invites to existing users.
- Early iMessage users and a reporter reported delayed or intermittent replies at launch, raising questions about reliability as Poke scales and as Apple weighs broader AI plans expected to surface at WWDC next week.