Compare
Eight ways to get work done. Pick the one that fits.
The shortlist got longer in 2026. This page is our honest read of where each kind of option fits a business, including the places where others are stronger than we are.
01The field
Every option has a strength. Here is where each one breaks.
We describe categories rather than products, because products change every month. If one person wants a better tool, several of these are great choices.
amino
AI employee- What you get
- A hired role on its own desk, with its own identity
- Its real strength
- Work that is owned, contained and provable
- For a business
- You manage it like a hire, with a charter and a trust ladder
| The other seven | What you get | Its real strength | Where it breaks for a business |
|---|---|---|---|
| General AI assistant | A capable assistant working on your computer | Strength:Strong reasoning and broad tool use | Breaks:Your session and logins, personal memory, little you can audit |
| Open-source self-hosted agent | A free desktop coworker with your own model and keys | Strength:Model choice, even fully local; rigorous approvals | Breaks:Runs as you, on your machine; no per-worker identity or replay |
| Workspace-native agent | Agents inside a suite you already pay for | Strength:Near-zero setup, right next to your documents | Breaks:Bounded by the suite; hard to reach software outside it |
| Enterprise agent platform | Fleets of agents under central policy | Strength:Real governance at scale | Breaks:Months of platform work, and you still build every role |
| Single-role AI employee | One job done for you, often sales | Strength:Deep polish in one lane | Breaks:One lane, often opaque, often demo-gated with annual terms |
| Custom build | Your engineers on an agent framework | Strength:Fits your process exactly | Breaks:Months to build, then identity, audit and isolation are yours forever |
| Human hire or outsourcing | A person or a managed team | Strength:Judgment and accountability | Breaks:Weeks to hire and train, limited hours, ongoing management |
02The scorecard
What matters when work is critical.
- Strength
- Partial
- Gap
| Criterion | amino | General assistant | Self-hosted agent | Workspace agent | Agent platform | Single-role AI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blast radius | Strength: One sandboxed desk | Gap: Your machine and logins | Partial: Your machine, paths scoped | Partial: Your whole workspace | Partial: Vendor cloud, your tenant | Gap: Vendor cloud, opaque |
| Identity | Strength: Its own, per employee | Gap: Yours | Gap: Yours | Partial: Yours or a bot user | Strength: Service accounts you set up | Partial: The vendor’s |
| Approvals | Strength: Per role; trust graduates | Gap: Ad hoc, per prompt | Strength: Rigorous, set per task | Gap: Few, inside the suite | Strength: Policy you author | Gap: Vendor-defined |
| Audit trail | Strength: Live view and replay per employee | Gap: Chat history | Partial: Local traces, no replay | Partial: Edit history | Strength: Central logs | Partial: Activity dashboard |
| Memory | Strength: Shared across roles, with sources | Partial: Personal | Partial: Per conversation | Partial: Workspace content | Partial: Whatever you wire up | Gap: Locked to one lane |
| Who drives | Strength: It does, from its queue | Gap: You, prompt by prompt | Partial: Triggers start it, then it waits | Partial: You or simple automations | Strength: It does, once built | Partial: It does, in one lane |
| Software without an API | Strength: Through the screen, on its desk | Partial: On your screen, as you | Gap: Connectors and shell only | Gap: Rarely | Partial: Some, with configuration | Gap: Rarely |
| Models | Partial: Managed, capped per employee | Gap: The vendor’s | Strength: Any, even local | Gap: The suite’s | Partial: The platform’s | Gap: The vendor’s |
| Setup | Strength: Onboarding, no code | Partial: Minutes, for every task | Partial: Keys and connectors by hand | Strength: Already on | Gap: Months, plus a team | Gap: Weeks of onboarding calls |
03Reading the columns
How to read the scorecard
The governed options make you build every role yourself.
Amino is for teams that want work owned, contained and provable from day one.
Give it a role. It takes it from there.
We’re onboarding teams from the waitlist in order, starting with support queues.