12 Min
Shortwave improves your inbox. Central empties it.
Get your hours back. Your inbox sorted, your meetings captured, your follow-ups handled, wired into your CRM and Slack.
Never miss another call.
A better inbox is still an inbox.
Shortwave is an excellent AI email client for Gmail. The search is genuinely better than Gmail's. Thread summaries save real time. The draft quality is high. Built by ex-Googlers who worked on Google Inbox, and it shows.
It is still an inbox. You open it, you read it, you decide. Every email still requires your attention before anything moves. Central connects to your inbox and acts on it. A meeting request becomes a calendar invite. A client email becomes a task and a CRM update. A thread that needs a reply gets a draft waiting in your voice. You come back to find outcomes, not a queue.
Faster processing is still processing.
Shortwave has no calendar or task integration. Emails about meetings do not update your calendar. Emails with action items require manual entry somewhere else. Your inbox, calendar, and CRM remain separate systems you keep in sync yourself. And it only works with Gmail. If anyone on your team uses Outlook, it is simply not an option.
What this means in practice:
No calendar integration: meeting emails do not create calendar events
No task extraction: action items require manual entry in a separate tool
No CRM connection: client emails do not update contact or deal records
Gmail only: Outlook and Microsoft 365 are not supported
Daily AI request caps on every paid plan: 150 to 300 per day on Business
At $24/user/month, costs compound with headcount; a 10-person team pays $240/month for a better email client, not an executive assistant
Your inbox knows your business.
Central connects to your CRM, your Slack, and the same knowledge base your front desk runs on. When a client email lands, it already knows who they are. It surfaces what needs a decision, drafts the reply in your voice, creates the task, updates the record, and keeps your day organized.
Every signal that comes in becomes an action taken.
What this means in practice:
Inbox prioritization with AI-drafted replies in your voice
Meeting requests become calendar invites automatically
Tasks created from email threads without manual entry
CRM updated as deals move and clients respond
Meeting notes written, action items extracted, owners assigned
Works with Gmail and Outlook
What each product actually does
Feature
Email provider support
AI model
Calendar integration
Tasks created from email
CRM updated from email
Drafts without prompting
Meeting notes and action items
CRM and Slack connected
Daily AI request cap
Requires inbox time to work
Free trial
Shortwave
Gmail only
Assists (faster processing)
—
—
—
Requires prompt
—
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150 to 300/day (Business)
Yes
✓ Free plan available
Central
Gmail and Outlook
Acts (outcomes without you)
✓ Meeting requests become invites
✓ Automatic
✓ Automatic
✓ Queued in your voice
✓ Automatic
✓
No documented cap
—
✓ 10 days
Five minutes. Connect your inbox.
Connect your Gmail or Outlook account and Central starts acting on your email. No new interface to learn. No daily cap to watch. Most people notice the difference the first morning.
Don't take our word for it
"Shortwave made me faster at inbox zero. But I was still the one doing it. I switched to Central and the next morning there were tasks created, a meeting on the calendar, and a CRM update. I hadn't opened my inbox once."
James Wilson
Customer Success Lead, Quantum Edge Systems
"Shortwave made me faster at inbox zero. But I was still the one doing it. I switched to Central and the next morning there were tasks created, a meeting on the calendar, and a CRM update. I hadn't opened my inbox once."
James Wilson
Customer Success Lead, Quantum Edge Systems
"Shortwave made me faster at inbox zero. But I was still the one doing it. I switched to Central and the next morning there were tasks created, a meeting on the calendar, and a CRM update. I hadn't opened my inbox once."
James Wilson
Customer Success Lead, Quantum Edge Systems