Poke is now the first AI agent running inside Apple's Messages for Business platform.
Apple's Messages for Business is the channel that lets companies communicate with customers through iMessage - no separate app required on either end. Poke built its product around a related premise: AI agents that work through ordinary text messages, no account creation or download needed. Getting Apple's approval puts Poke's agents inside a channel the company controls tightly and has historically reserved for established businesses like banks and retailers, not AI intermediaries.
Apple's gatekeeping of Messages for Business has kept the platform sparse but trusted. The approval suggests Apple sees some room for AI agents inside iMessage - a meaningful concession from a company that has been cautious about letting third parties near its messaging infrastructure, and one that could matter for AI adoption given how many people already live in their iMessage threads.
One approved startup is not a policy shift. But it does hand Apple a low-risk way to observe how users respond to AI in their message threads before deciding how wide - or narrow - to keep the door.