# Best AI personal assistants that act for one person (slim)

> ZeroClaw (BB), NanoClaw (B) and Hermes Agent (B) lead the 20 ranked AI personal assistants that act for one person. Picks by need, strengths, weaknesses and prices from the Anchor benchmark.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/personal-assistants/index.md (~6,850 tokens) · this version ~1,580 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/personal-assistants/index.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/personal-assistants/
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-12

The 10 highest-scoring of 20 AI personal assistants that act for one person on the Anchor benchmark, with a pick for each need and where each one falls short. Scores come from public evidence, re-checked as vendors change.

- Ranked: 20 · agent-ready (BB or better): 1 · accept x402: 0 · hosted endpoints: 1
- Full ranked table: https://www.anchorterminal.com/categories/personal-assistants.md
- Head-to-head comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/personal-assistants/index.md (190)
- Methodology: https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/index.md

## The shortlist

| # | Tool | Grade | Score | Best for | Price | Where |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | [ZeroClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zeroclaw.md) | BB | 70.2 | One person who wants an assistant on their own hardware that answers on Telegram, Discord, Matrix or email, asks before it writes or runs commands, and works with a local model. | Free · OSS | Local |
| 2 | [NanoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nanoclaw.md) | B | 68.3 | A technical owner who wants an assistant on their own machine, reachable from chat apps, with container isolation and scheduled tasks, and who is willing to keep a fork. | Free · OSS | Local |
| 3 | [Hermes Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/hermes-agent.md) | B | 67.9 | A technical owner who wants one always-on agent across chat apps with memory and scheduled jobs, on their own machine or a small server, with any model. | Free · OSS | Local |
| 4 | [OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openclaw.md) | B | 67.1 | A technical owner who wants an assistant on their own machine across many chat apps, with their choice of model and files they can read and delete. | Free · OSS | Local |
| 5 | [IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/ironclaw.md) | B | 66.7 | One technical owner who wants a self-hosted assistant over Gmail, Calendar, Slack and Telegram with credentials kept out of the model's reach. | $20 / mo | Local |
| 6 | [nanobot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nanobot.md) | B | 62.4 | A technical owner who wants an assistant on their own machine across many chat apps, with file-based memory and a free choice of model. | Free · OSS | Local |
| 7 | [QwenPaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/qwenpaw.md) | B | 62.2 | One person who wants an assistant on Chinese and Western chat apps with scheduled digests, a consumer mailbox and file-based memory, on their own machine and with a model of their choice. | Free · OSS | Local |
| 8 | [AstrBot](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/astrbot.md) | C | 58.8 | Someone who wants one self-run bot answering on QQ, Telegram, Slack, Discord, Lark or WeCom, in private or group chats, with scheduled tasks, a knowledge base and plugins. | Free · OSS | Local |
| 9 | [CowAgent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cowagent.md) | C | 58.5 | One technical owner who wants an assistant on WeChat, Feishu, DingTalk, Telegram, Slack or Discord with memory in local files and a choice of Chinese and Western model providers. | Free · OSS | Local |
| 10 | [GAIA](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/gaia.md) | D | 49.5 | It suits one person who wants mail triage, meeting briefs, todos and scheduled workflows from one assistant reachable on WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord or iMessage, and who wants to read the source. | $30 / mo | Local |

## Picks by need

- Highest score overall: [ZeroClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zeroclaw.md), BB, 70.2/100 on the benchmark. Also [NanoClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nanoclaw.md), B, 68.3/100.
- Reliability: [CowAgent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cowagent.md), 84/100 on reliability, against 74 for the overall leader.
- Schema & documentation: [OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openclaw.md), 84/100 on schema & documentation, against 82 for the overall leader.
- Agent ergonomics: [Hermes Agent](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/hermes-agent.md), 80/100 on agent ergonomics, against 72 for the overall leader.
- Maintenance & community: [OpenClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openclaw.md), 86/100 on maintenance & community, against 80 for the overall leader.
- Transparency & trust: [IronClaw](https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/ironclaw.md), 75/100 on transparency & trust, against 64 for the overall leader.

## How to choose

- What it does without asking: Check which actions run without approval, such as sending mail, paying or deleting, since an assistant that acts unasked can act on an instruction hidden in a message it read.
- Accounts and how credentials are kept: Check which accounts it connects to, with what scope, and where the tokens are stored, because one assistant can hold the keys to a person's mail, calendar, files and money.
- Memory and deletion: Check what it remembers about the owner, where that is stored and whether deleting it removes every copy, since the memory is a profile of one person.
- Where it runs and what leaves: Check whether it runs on the owner's machine or the vendor's servers and which model provider sees the content, since private messages may pass through several companies.
- Channels and cost: Check which messaging apps it answers on and what a month of use costs, including model usage billed separately for self-hosted assistants.

- How the benchmark tests this category: In this run, public evidence against the published checklist, with hosted assistants read as hosted services and self-hosted ones as software the owner runs. When the task suites run, the same week of mail, calendar and messages given to each assistant, with a meeting to move, a bill to chase and a message carrying an instruction it should not follow. We check what it does unasked, what it asks before sending or paying, whether the planted instruction is refused, and what it keeps afterwards.

Each listing's verdict, strengths and weaknesses: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/personal-assistants/index.md