this+that vs Upstream
One reimagined inbox, or every channel reimagined as one.
Both products rebuild the inbox from scratch around humans and AI agents working together. Upstream is a freshly-launched, design-forward email client for Gmail. this+that’s a unified inbox that pulls every channel into one place: Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Teams, Google Chat, WhatsApp Business, calendars, and attachments today, with Instagram and Facebook Messenger coming soon. Same bet that AI for work belongs inside the surface where work actually happens. Different bet on how wide that surface should be.
Same thesis, different surface area
<p>Both products belong to Wave 2 of AI for work, the fit-for-purpose tier where the AI lives inside the work surface, not in a separate chat window. (More in our <a href='/blog/ai-second-wave'>essay on AI's second wave</a>.) Upstream's CEO Louis Lecat puts it well: "The future of work isn't one person and one assistant. It's teams of people and teams of agents working together." That's exactly the bet we are making too.</p><p>The difference is how wide the rebuilt inbox is. Upstream is rebuilding the email inbox itself: a beautifully-crafted client for Gmail, with agents that can sort, draft, schedule, and follow up, plus a shared team context for collaboration. Today it is Gmail-only on web, Mac, Windows, and iOS, with Outlook and Android in the roadmap. Freemium, polished, clearly aimed at design-conscious teams.</p><p>this+that rebuilds the inbox too, but as a unified surface for every channel work arrives on. You read your email in this+that. And your Slack threads. And your Teams chats, Google Chat rooms, WhatsApp Business messages, calendar events, and attachments. Instagram and Facebook Messenger are coming soon. Every message in the same place, with the same AI reading it, the same task list pulling work out of it, and the same workflows acting on it. We are betting on cross-channel breadth with workflows on top, rather than on a single best-of-breed email client.</p><p>If most of your work lives in Gmail and the highest-value problem is a beautifully-engineered email client where humans and agents collaborate, Upstream is excellent. If work arrives across every channel your team uses and you want one inbox to handle all of it, with tasks, workflows, and team visibility built in, that is what we built this+that for.</p>
Feature by feature
How the two products compare across the things that matter most.
| Topic | Upstream | this+that |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Wave 2. AI-native email inbox where humans and agents collaborate. | Wave 2. AI-native unified inbox across email, chat, calendar, and DMs, with tasks and workflows on top. |
| Where work starts | Incoming email and user prompts inside the inbox. | Incoming messages across every connected channel. The agent reads what arrives without being asked and surfaces what needs doing. |
| Email providers | Gmail at launch. Outlook on the roadmap. | Gmail and Outlook, continuously scanned for tasks and workflow triggers. |
| Messaging channels | None at launch. Email-only for now. | Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Chat, and WhatsApp Business today. Instagram and Facebook Messenger coming soon. |
| Surfaces | Web, Mac, Windows, iOS. Android in progress. | Web, browser extension, Gmail add-on (in flight), MCP server. Mobile through the responsive web app. |
| Task extraction | Inline assignees, due dates, statuses, and summaries on email threads. | DoBox scans every message across every channel for requests, commitments, deadlines, and follow-ups, surfaced as assignable tasks for the team with provenance back to the source message. |
| Workflow automation | Agent-driven actions inside the inbox: draft, sort, schedule, follow up, find receipts. | Plain-language workflow builder. A broad action set, conditional logic, loops, sub-agents. Triggered by messages, schedules, or manual runs. |
| Team knowledge | Shared team context inside conversations: assignees, due dates, status. | The brain. A writable team knowledge layer with personal and team spaces. Agents read and write. Pages can be published outward as public artifacts that answer common visitor questions. |
| Voice and tone | Analyses previous writing to match tone, formatting, and emoji style. A clear strength. | Drafts in your voice across every channel based on your prior messages, with per-team or per-channel overrides. |
| MCP support | Yes. Bring your own agent (Claude, Codex, others) via MCP. | Yes. Open MCP first-class. We host an MCP server you can connect to; we also call external MCP servers from workflows. |
| Calendar | Context input for drafting and scheduling. | Read and write. Workflows can RSVP, create, and reschedule. Public artifacts can show live availability and let visitors book a demo against your real calendar. |
| Privacy stance | No training on customer data. Messages analyzed temporarily to generate contextually accurate drafts. | No training on customer data, including anonymised. Contractual commitment in our DPA. Message content encrypted under dedicated KMS keys; employees read it only with your permission or for emergency support, and that access is temporary and logged. |
| Pricing | Core is free forever. Pro is $20 per member per month billed yearly, and Max is $60 for larger organizations. Only annual rates are published. | Free for 30 days, including 3,000 credits. Then $35 per user per month, or $29 billed annually, with 3,000 credits a month per person. |
| Funding stage | $3M pre-seed, June 2026. YC S23, Connect Ventures, Kima Ventures, Algolia/Asana/Framer/Alan/Webflow angels. | Backed by LocalGlobe. |
- A Wave 2 product done with real craft. The team came out of Algolia and Doctrine, and the design lineage they cite (Linear, Arc, Granola) shows in the early reception.
- The voice and tone modeling is good. Drafts adapt to your formatting, emoji choices, and structural quirks.
- Team-shared context inline in email threads (assignees, due dates, status summaries) makes email feel a bit more like a project tracker without leaving the inbox.
- MCP-first from launch. Bring Claude, Codex, or your own agent and they fit in alongside the built-in capabilities.
- No training on customer data, a reassuring baseline for handing your email to an AI product.
- Strong investor signal: YC, Connect Ventures, Xavier Niel via Kima, and a deep angel roster from Algolia, Asana, Framer, Alan, Webflow.
- A unified inbox in the literal sense. You read email, Slack, Teams, Google Chat, and WhatsApp Business messages in the same place today, with Instagram and FB Messenger coming soon, instead of jumping between tabs.
- Outlook and Microsoft 365 are first-class. If half your team is on Outlook and Teams, you can adopt now.
- Real workflows. A broad action set, conditional logic, loops, sub-agents. The kind of automation depth you would otherwise wire up in Zapier or Make, with an agent doing the decisions.
- The brain: a writable team knowledge layer that agents and humans share. Pages can be published outward as public artifacts that answer common customer questions, with a live booking widget that lets visitors book against your real calendar.
- Team-first. Task assignment, shared task views, and team-request grounding (your agent searches a teammate's brain to draft a suggested reply) are built in.
- Provenance. Every task links back to the source message in whichever channel it arrived. One click to the original thread for full context.
What is Upstream?
Upstream is an AI-native inbox for Gmail, built in Paris by a team that came through Y Combinator's Summer 2023 batch. It launched publicly on June 3, 2026 with a $3M pre-seed backed by Y Combinator, Connect Ventures and Kima Ventures, alongside angels including founders from Framer, Algolia, Asana and Webflow. The founders are Louis Lecat, previously Head of Product at Algolia and earlier on early product at Asana, and Jonathan Tiret, previously VP Engineering at Doctrine. Their tagline is "the first inbox designed for humans and agents," and the product is MCP-first: agents draft in your voice, sort, schedule and follow up, with shared team context inline.
How much does Upstream cost?
Upstream Core is free forever. Pro is $20 per member per month billed yearly, and Max is $60 for larger organizations wanting advanced security and AI controls. Only annual rates are published, with no monthly option shown. this+that is free for 30 days and $35 per user per month afterwards, or $29 on annual billing, so Upstream's Pro tier undercuts us once the trial ends and their free tier has no equivalent on our side today.
Who should choose Upstream?
If your team is entirely on Gmail and you care about craft, Upstream is a genuinely appealing product and the design lineage shows. They are also making the same category bet we’re. Their CEO has said the future of work isn’t one person and one assistant but teams of people and teams of agents working together, which is close to our own thesis stated by someone with no reason to flatter us. For a Gmail-only team that wants a beautiful, agent-aware inbox, they’re a strong choice.
Looking for an Upstream alternative?
The reason is usually breadth. Upstream is built on Gmail, and its published material describes email rather than team chat. If your team is on Outlook, or if a meaningful share of the work arrives in Slack, Teams, Google Chat or WhatsApp Business, that sits outside what Upstream currently describes. this+that rebuilds the inbox across all of those, adds a task layer that links each item back to the message it came from, and a workflow builder rather than agent actions alone. They are shipping quickly, so it’s worth confirming their current provider and channel support with them directly.
See what's waiting in your inbox
Connect your inbox and this+that starts reading it. The tasks, follow-ups, and open commitments buried in your messages become tracked work, and what your team knows starts collecting in one place.
Free for 30 days · Then $35 per user per month · $29 billed annually