Best AI agents & automation tools: ranked
Agent builders and workflow automation. Scored out of 100 with a standard hands-on test. How we score.
Top 10
Testing in progress, 0 ranked. A tool enters the top 10 only after every sub-score has published evidence, and the list appears once 10 tools are fully scored. We never estimate a score.
Scored (fewer than 10 so far)
Unranked: testing (63)
Candidates from our directory that fit this category. Listed alphabetically; listed is not ranked, and none of these has a score yet.
- AegisKernel Open-source project that says it is a zero-trust, deterministic security runtime for autonomous AI agents.
- Aircall AI-powered business phone and communications platform with CRM integrations.
- Airtable Collaborative database platform to automate work and build business apps.
- Amp Coding agent and development environment that says it is built for frontier models, usable locally or in remote orbs.
- Arvow AI agents that the company says build backlinks, fix technical SEO issues and research, write and publish content aimed at Google and AI search citations.
- Asana Work management software for teams and AI agents.
- Augment Code Agentic software development platform (Cosmos) that the company says brings coding agents to whole engineering organizations.
- Beam AI Builds and deploys AI agents that automate business processes inside existing workflows.
- Beeline Team chat where people and coding agents share a room, hand off work and run shared workflows.
- Bland AI Platform to build, deploy and monitor AI phone voice agents, with self-hosted models.
- Busabase Open-source, self-hostable database and workspace for AI agents, with human review on important writes.
- Claude Code Anthropic's agentic coding tool that understands your codebase, edits files and runs commands, in the terminal and IDE.
- Claude Cowork Anthropic's agent for knowledge work: start a task at your desk, check in from your phone, and get a deck, document or spreadsheet back; supports scheduled tasks.
- CrewAI Multi-agent platform for building and running crews of AI agents.
- Crush Open-source terminal coding agent from Charm; multi-model (OpenAI- or Anthropic-compatible APIs), LSP context, MCP extensions and multiple sessions per project.
- Devin AI coding agent that runs parallel cloud agents for engineering teams.
- Endo Open-source 'higher order harness' that wraps agent providers in one chat interface; the maker says you can swap providers mid-session and chain agents.
- endue AI Platform for AI agents that each get their own cloud Linux and Chrome workspace, plus an account-wide secretary that splits a request across agents and gathers the results; agents can also be called over MCP from Claude Code or Cursor. Usage is paid in credits (1 credit = US$1).
- EtherPK Agent Chat Feature in the EtherPK notes app that lets you chat with an AI agent about your notes and control what it can see.
- Exa Search API for AI agents needing real-time web data and deep research.
- Factory AI coding agents called Droids that the company says automate coding, testing and deployment for startups and enterprises.
- Firecrawl Web data API for AI agents that turns websites into clean, structured data for LLM and agent use.
- Fireflies.ai AI meeting notes, tasks and workflow automation across meetings and apps.
- Flowise Open-source visual platform for building AI agents and LLM workflows.
- Gemini CLI Google's terminal AI agent for querying and editing large codebases, generating apps from images or PDFs and automating workflows; Google says unpaid-tier and Google One users moved to Antigravity CLI in June 2026.
- goose Open-source local AI agent with desktop app, CLI and API for code, workflows and automation; part of the Linux Foundation Agentic AI Foundation.
- Grok Bot AI agent app where named Bots work on a persistent cloud computer with a browser, files and a terminal, using connectors, skills and scheduled routines.
- Hermes Agent Open-source, self-hosted AI agent from Nous Research with persistent memory, self-created skills and a messaging gateway for Telegram, Discord and Slack.
- Jules Google's autonomous coding agent: clones your GitHub repo to a cloud VM, plans changes with Gemini, shows a diff and opens a PR; free tier lists 15 tasks per day.
- Kilo Code Open-source AI coding agent for VS Code, JetBrains, the CLI and the cloud; works with 500+ models at zero markup, your own API keys or local models.
- Kiro Agentic development environment that says it turns prompts into executable specs, checks code correctness and runs parallel agents across large codebases.
- LangGraph Agent orchestration framework for durable execution, memory, streaming and human-in-the-loop control of AI agent workflows.
- Make Visual no-code platform to build and automate AI and agentic workflows.
- Manus AI agent that executes tasks and automates workflows.
- MeetCap Free Mac app (macOS 14.2+) that transcribes meetings on your computer, gives live catch-up summaries and writes minutes as Markdown files. Summaries use your own agent, API key or a local model, and AI agents can start recordings or search past meetings.
- monday.com Work management platform with AI agents.
- n8n Workflow automation platform combining AI with business process automation.
- Novastart Infinite-canvas operating system where apps, teammates and AI agents work on one shared canvas; available as an app or an installable OS.
- Offscreen Free, open-source (MIT) beta tool that runs a coding agent's UI tests, iOS Simulator and GUI apps in throwaway macOS VMs so they don't take over your screen; needs an Apple silicon Mac with Xcode.
- OpenAI Codex OpenAI's coding agent across ChatGPT, the terminal, IDE and cloud; runs parallel tasks and reviews pull requests. Included in ChatGPT plans per its site.
- OpenCode Open-source AI coding agent for editing and working in codebases.
- Otter.ai AI meeting agent with real-time transcription, summaries and action items.
- pi-cowboy Free, open-source (MIT) multi-agent orchestrator for the Pi coding agent that runs Pi, Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and others as parallel subagents, each in its own terminal pane and copy-on-write Git worktree.
- Qwen Code Open-source AI coding agent for the terminal, editor, desktop, browser and chat; supports OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini and Qwen APIs plus local models.
- Relevance AI Platform to build and run AI agents for sales, support, marketing and HR.
- ReliaMesh Open-source, self-hostable reliability monitoring for AI agents.
- remove.bg Removes image backgrounds automatically.
- Retell AI Platform to build and run AI phone agents, pay as you go from about $0.07 per minute, with $10 in free credits to start.
- Roomote Cloud coding agent (from the Roo Code team; roocode.com now points here) that ships reviewable pull requests, hosted or self-hosted, source-available, bring any model.
- rStation Research communities where independent AI agents discuss problems and publish reviewed papers.
- Simplified AI agents for recurring marketing work such as launches, reports and handoffs.
- Stack AI No-code drag-and-drop platform for enterprises to build and deploy AI agents and apps.
- Taskade Build AI-powered apps, CRMs and workflows with AI agents.
- Tavily Real-time web search and extraction API for AI agents.
- TecAdRise Bot Free, MIT-licensed desktop multi-agent chat app for Windows (source on GitHub) that its maker pitches as a local Grok Bot alternative.
- Termexo Windows workbench for running coding agents such as Claude Code and Codex, resuming sessions and reconnecting from a phone.
- TextCortex Platform for deploying and governing AI agents on a company's own data, aimed at enterprises.
- Typeform AI-powered forms and surveys with automated workflows.
- Vapi Developer platform to build advanced voice AI agents; charges $0.05 per minute for hosting with models passed through at cost.
- Voiceflow Platform to build, launch and run chat and voice AI agents for customer support.
- WhatsApp MCP Unofficial, free open-source (MIT) read-only MCP server you deploy to your own Cloudflare account so an AI agent can search and read your WhatsApp chats; it cannot send messages. Not made by WhatsApp or Meta, and it needs the Cloudflare Workers Paid plan.
- WRS AI Sales Agent AI sales agent for online stores that finds products, compares options and guides shoppers to checkout using the store catalog.
- Zapier AI workflow and agent automation across thousands of apps.
The standard test for AI agents & automation
- Automate 5 steps: new web-form lead → enrich (company from email domain) → score → create CRM contact (free CRM sandbox) → send a Slack/email notification.
- Run it with 3 test leads, including one malformed.
- Score: steps completed unaided, error handling, setup time, transparency/logs, free-tier run limits.