In the fast-paced world of digital communication, text messages often slip through the cracks. It’s easy to leave a friend or colleague’s message on “delivered” for days, unintentionally ghosting them. RPLY aims to solve this problem by offering a unique AI assistant designed to help users stay on top of their texts, offering automatic replies and reducing the anxiety that often comes with a cluttered inbox. This new app for macOS promises to help users achieve “inbox zero” on iMessage by utilizing AI to identify missed texts and generate personalized responses.
RPLY: The Brainchild of a Young Innovator
The app is the brainchild of Molly Cantillon, a 21-year-old Stanford dropout who previously created NOX, a personalized AI assistant for iOS, backed by OpenAI’s startup fund. Cantillon explained the concept behind RPLY: “It was built to handle ‘text debt,’ mentally replying but never hitting send, getting distracted, or just forgetting. The core idea is making texting feel less like a burden while still maintaining authentic connections.”
How RPLY Works: Bringing AI to Text Messaging
While AI-powered smart reply technology has been around for nearly a decade—used by major tech companies like Google—Cantillon noted that she has yet to see a solution like RPLY for iMessage. Unlike other systems, RPLY’s assistant goes a step further by analyzing a user’s entire text history to craft replies that align with their writing style and personality, ensuring responses that feel natural.
Inspired by the Inbox Zero concept, popularized in the world of email, RPLY filters out unanswered messages. Users get a clear overview of unread texts, allowing them to see how many need responses, without the hassle of scrolling through iMessage.
Unique Features of RPLY
- Smart AI Replies: The AI assistant analyzes your texting style and suggests or generates responses based on past conversations. No more generic replies—RPLY offers contextually appropriate and personalized responses.
- Unread Message Filter: The unanswered message filter is one of the app’s simplest yet most vital features. It lets users focus on only the messages that need attention, avoiding the stress of manually going through unread texts.
- Statistics Page: RPLY also includes a statistics page to help users track their texting habits. It provides metrics such as average weekly response time, inbox zero streaks, and even reveals patterns like “Those You Answer Quickest” and “Those You Like to Ghost.” These insights help users understand and improve their response habits.
- User-Friendly Interface: The app is intuitive and provides a clear summary of your texting habits, making it easier to track progress and see where improvements are needed.
Privacy and Security: What You Need to Know
Given the concerns around data privacy, RPLY emphasizes that it does not use text content to train generalized AI models. It adheres to a strict zero data retention policy, meaning any data is immediately deleted after processing. The app also offers a local Llama-based option (Meta’s AI model) for users who want to keep all data processing entirely on-device, ensuring no data is ever uploaded to external servers.
However, it’s important to note that in order to function, RPLY needs access to users’ text messages and contacts, which may raise privacy concerns for some users. While RPLY assures users that their data won’t be sold to third parties, concerns about privacy and data breaches still exist, as demonstrated by incidents like the DeepSeek breach, where personal chat histories were exposed.
Availability and Pricing
RPLY is currently available exclusively for macOS devices. With Apple’s strict App Store guidelines, it seems RPLY developed a Mac app as a strategic workaround. The app is free to try for the first 14 days, after which it costs $30 per month—a premium price tag for those looking to streamline their texting experience through AI-powered assistance.
While it might seem a bit on the pricier side, the app could save users a significant amount of time and energy, especially those with high volumes of texts to manage, such as professionals or entrepreneurs.
RPLY’s Growing User Base and the Potential for Expansion
Despite being newly launched, RPLY has already attracted over 1,000 paid users. The app’s user base is primarily made up of individuals working in tech, creative, and business fields, as well as founders, recruiters, and retail agents who are overwhelmed by their crowded inboxes. College students are also showing interest, given how often they communicate via iMessage.
Cantillon has plans to expand RPLY’s availability to platforms such as WhatsApp and Slack, but it remains uncertain whether this will happen soon. There are concerns that Slack users might be wary of sharing extensive personal data with an AI company, particularly in a work environment.
The Emotional Impact of AI Texting Assistants
While RPLY offers tremendous convenience, it also raises questions about the emotional impact of relying on AI for personal communication. The app’s ability to respond automatically may lead to the risk of losing the emotional connection that comes with texting, as some users may prefer authentic, heartfelt exchanges over automated replies.
As generative AI continues to evolve, questions like these are becoming more relevant. Is the convenience of AI-generated responses worth the potential loss of genuine human interaction?
Looking Forward: What’s Next for RPLY?
RPLY is still in its early stages, but its introduction marks a significant leap in AI-assisted communication. Cantillon is eager to improve and expand RPLY, incorporating more features based on user feedback. AI-driven tools like this one are setting the stage for a future where communication is faster, more efficient, and less stressful. RPLY is a bold step forward, blending AI convenience with personal connection—the future of texting could very well be powered by AI assistants like this one.
