01 · MATCH
Wake on a match, stay quiet on everything else.
A billing email matches its workflow and starts a run. Unmatched mail remains ordinary inbox work for the team.
AI-NATIVE SHARED INBOX FOR GOOGLE WORKSPACE
Add an AI teammate to your shared inbox. Without giving it the keys.
DuoInbox is a shared inbox for Google Workspace teams of roughly 3 to 20. It watches incoming Gmail, wakes Hermes — the agent that does the work — only on messages a workflow rule matches, hands it that one thread and nothing more, and holds every external reply as a proposal until a person approves it.
- New email
- Rule matched
- Agent wakes
- Person approves
WHO IT IS FOR
Built for Google Workspace teams of roughly 3 to 20 running a shared support@, billing@, orders@, or operations@ inbox.
- Repeatable email work worth preparing by software before a person reads it.
- External replies that need a consistent human checkpoint rather than an ad hoc one.
- An operator who wants to know why an agent ran on a particular message.
If your problem is only duplicate replies and unclear ownership among people, a conventional shared inbox is enough. See where this is the wrong tool.
THE GAP
MCP gives an agent email tools. DuoInbox gives it triggers, policies, and approvals.
Gmail MCP can let an agent read, prepare, or send mail. On its own it does not decide which message should wake the agent, which workflow applies, or what that workflow permits.
DuoInbox makes that decision before the agent acts, then carries the rule, the thread boundary, and the approval requirement into the run.
HOW IT WORKS
From arriving message to approved reply.
- 01
Watch incoming Gmail
DuoInbox observes updates to the shared mailbox, so the agent never polls it and never holds standing access to everything that arrives.
- 02
Match workflow rules
Sender, domain, and intent rules decide which messages belong to a defined workflow. Anything that does not match stays ordinary inbox work for the team.
- 03
Run the agent inside that workflow
The run receives the matched thread and only the actions the workflow allows, through governed MCP access rather than direct Gmail credentials.
- 04
Hold consequential actions for a person
Anything the workflow marks for approval stops in the review queue with the source message, the proposed reply, the recipients, and the policy checks side by side.
PERMISSION LEVELS
Three permission levels, set for each workflow.
These are the levels. There is no fourth one, and no workflow can exceed the level it is set to.
-
Summarize only
MAY Read the matched thread and post a summary to the team.
MAY NOT Compose or send email.
-
Prepare a proposed reply
MAY Compose a reply that is held as a proposal awaiting review.
MAY NOT Send that reply.
-
Send after human approval
MAY Send only the version a person approved.
MAY NOT Send anything before that approval. External send is blocked until then.
PRODUCT SURFACES
One place to match, review, and operate the work.
02 · REVIEW
Put the consequential moment in one place.
The source message, the proposed reply, the recipients, and the policy checks are visible together before a person decides.
03 · OPERATE
Operate the inbox. Watch the boundary.
Runtime state sits beside workflow permissions, the sending limit, audit activity, and the control that stops new runs.
OPERATOR CONTROLS
A named person can restrict it, watch it, and stop it.
- 01 Workflow permissions
- Set summarize, propose, or send-after-approval for each workflow rather than once for the whole mailbox.
- 02 Recipient restrictions
- A recipient change is treated as its own policy check, not as incidental text inside a reply.
- 03 Sending limits
- Set a ceiling on approved outbound actions for a workflow.
- 04 Review queue
- Every proposal waits in one place, with the context a reviewer needs to approve, reject, or request changes.
- 05 Audit log
- Trace the mailbox event, the matched rule, the agent action, the policy checks, and the human decision as one chain.
- 06 Immediate kill switch
- Stop new runs from one visible runtime control.
Slack notifications are part of the same control set. See what an operator can set and stop.
NOT DECIDED YET
What we have not decided yet.
Three questions buyers ask that DuoInbox cannot answer honestly today. They are listed here rather than left for you to discover later.
-
Pricing and packaging
Not set. DuoInbox will not quote a number or describe a pricing model until they are, and nothing here should be read as implying one.
Read the full answer -
Availability
Not announced. Early access requests are read against the initial Gmail and Hermes scope.
Request early access -
Certification
DuoInbox holds no compliance certification and claims none. The security questions we cannot answer yet are listed rather than omitted.
See the open questions
FAQ
Questions teams ask.
What is DuoInbox?
A shared inbox for Google Workspace teams of roughly 3 to 20 people running a support@, billing@, orders@, or operations@ address. Hermes, the agent that does the work, sits in that inbox as a teammate whose permissions are set per workflow.
What access does the agent get to our mailbox?
It does not hold Gmail credentials. It reaches mail through governed MCP access that DuoInbox mediates, and each run receives the matched thread and the actions that workflow allows rather than the mailbox.
Can it send email on its own?
No. External send is blocked until a person approves the version that goes out. A workflow can be set to summarize only, prepare a proposed reply, or send after human approval, and the last level still requires that approval.
What happens when it gets something wrong?
Four failure modes are handled explicitly. A wrong workflow match shows the matched rule so a person can reassign or reject it. Missing or stale context stops the run instead of filling the gap. A recipient or thread change is checked as a policy event in its own right. A repeated action keeps stable event identity so a retry is distinguishable from a new request.
Who is this not for?
If your problem is only duplicate replies and unclear ownership among people, a conventional shared inbox is enough. If you want autonomous external sending with no human checkpoint, DuoInbox will not do that. If you are not on Google Workspace, it does not apply yet.
What does it cost?
Pricing and packaging are not set. DuoInbox will not quote a price, name a plan, or describe a pricing model until they are, so nothing on this site should be read as implying per-seat, per-workflow, or usage pricing.
GUIDES
Plan the boundary before the agent enters the inbox.
-
Technical guide
Gmail MCP for AI agents: tools are not governance
Separate mailbox tool access from the controls that decide when an agent runs, what it may do, and when a person must review the work.
-
Buyer guide
AI email agents: a practical governance guide
A practical framework for assessing boundaries, review states, failure modes, and operational ownership before an agent touches a shared inbox.
-
Operations guide
Shared inbox for Gmail: agent controls
Understand where familiar team collaboration ends and agent-specific permissions, approval queues, limits, and audit history begin.
-
Architecture guide
Own mailbox or shared inbox for an AI agent
The architecture decision behind every agent email setup: whether the agent is the counterparty with its own address, or a governed worker inside the team's inbox.
-
Decision guide
Shared inbox or ticketing system for a small team
The three variables that decide it, the overhead a ticketing system adds, and why an agent in the queue needs a review state rather than a status field.
-
Category hub
Team inbox software: a fit framework
Five category shapes sorted by how deep each one reaches into your mail, with sourced entry prices and an honest read on when the free native option is enough.
-
Question guide
Google Groups Collaborative Inbox limits
Google's own capability list, prerequisites, published numeric limits, and named upgrade path for a Collaborative Inbox — quoted with sources and a checked date.
-
Landscape guide
AI agents for Gmail: sorted by access model
The four access models behind every 'AI agent for Gmail' claim, each stated only from a vendor's own published page and dated, with no ranking.
EARLY ACCESS
Tell us the inbox workflow you would govern first.
Your email and the workflow you describe are stored so a person can follow up. DuoInbox does not publish a response-time commitment, so this page will not promise one.
Request early access