Comparison
Frey vs. a virtual assistant vs. an AI chatbot.
A human virtual assistant costs a salary and needs onboarding. A general AI chatbot is powerful but knows nothing about your week. Frey is a third thing: a digital executive assistant wired to your real Gmail and calendar, private by construction, that arrives with the day understood.
| Frey DEA | Human VA | AI chatbot | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Knows your inbox & calendar | Yes — reads across every account you connect | Only what you forward or grant | No — you paste context each time |
| Ready before you wake | Brief, prep, and decisions waiting each morning | Works your hours, in your timezone | Only when you prompt it |
| Sends email for you | Never — drafts only, you send | Yes, if you delegate it | No |
| Privacy | Your data renders your features only; never sold or trained on | A person reads your inbox | Prompts may train the model |
| Ramp-up | Connect Gmail + calendar, useful the same morning | Weeks of hiring and onboarding | None, but no memory of your world |
| Cost | €20 / month | €2,000+ / month | €20 / month, but does not know you |
The short version
Hire a virtual assistant when you want a person to act on your behalf and can carry the cost and the onboarding. Use a chatbot for open-ended thinking that does not depend on your inbox. Choose Frey when you want the specific job of a chief of staff — the brief, the meeting prep, the triage, the decisions — done automatically on your own mail and calendar, without handing your inbox to a person or your context to a model.