Shortwave turns email into chat
Jacob Wenger, CPO at Shortwave, on building a standalone business on email
Shortwave is trying to change email behavior, not just make inbox cleanup faster. By making threads look and feel more like chat, with signatures collapsed, long quoted history cleaned up, and faster back and forth between Shortwave users, it nudges teams to treat internal email like a lightweight conversation instead of a formal letter. That matters because shorter messages make email more competitive with Slack for day to day coordination.
-
The product is built around the idea that email lost internal communication share because the experience is slower and clumsier than messaging apps. Shortwave adds chat style presentation, real time delivery between Shortwave users, typing indicators, emoji reactions, and thread cleanup to recreate the feel of a modern messenger on top of Gmail.
-
This is also where Shortwave differs from Superhuman. Superhuman optimizes for speed and power users, with keyboard heavy workflows and premium pricing around $30 to $40 per month. Shortwave has aimed at broader team adoption, lower pricing, and an inbox organized workflow that a median employee can use without training.
-
The business logic is that if teams start conducting more of their quick internal coordination inside email, Shortwave becomes more than a nicer inbox. It becomes a collaboration layer on top of Google Workspace, which is the same path newer AI email tools are following as they try to own workflows rather than just summarize messages.
The next step is turning this behavioral wedge into a broader work surface. Shortwave has already expanded from chat like inbox design into AI summaries, drafting, search, and workflow automation. If it keeps pulling short coordination loops, triage, and task handling back into the inbox, email clients will look less like mailboxes and more like lightweight operating systems for desk work.