Categories: AI Assistant, AI Email Assistant, AI Meeting Assistant, AI Note Taker, AI Productivity Tools, AI Summarizer, AI Task Management, AI Transcriber
Hoop Review: The AI Assistant That Ends To-Do List Chaos?
Let's be real. My professional to-do list has, for years, been a Frankenstein's monster. It’s a chaotic jumble of starred Slack messages, flagged emails, random notes in a Google Doc, and the occasional panicked scribble on a sticky note that inevitably loses its stick. Every day feels like a mad dash to consolidate these disparate 'I'll get to that' promises into something resembling a coherent plan. It's exhausting.
So when I first heard about Hoop, I was skeptical but intrigued. An AI executive assistant that promises to automatically capture every single task from all my digital hangouts? It sounded too good to be true. Like a magical productivity unicorn. But as someone who's constantly drowning in a sea of digital chatter, I had to give it a shot. I've spent the last few weeks letting it wire itself into my workflow, and well… it's been an experience.
What Exactly is Hoop Anyway?
Hoop isn't just another task manager app where you manually type in your to-dos. Think of it less as a list and more as a listener. It’s an AI tool that connects directly to the places where work actually happens: your email (Gmail and Outlook), your chat app (Slack), and your meeting platforms (Google Meet and Zoom).
Instead of you having to remember to write things down, Hoop's AI sifts through your conversations and automatically pulls out action items. Someone says, "Can you send me that report by EOD?" in a Zoom call? Hoop catches it. A colleague drops a link in Slack and says, "we should review this"? Hoop adds it to your list. It’s designed to be the brain that catches all the things your own brain is too busy to hold onto.
The Onboarding Experience: Connecting the Wires
Getting started was surprisingly straightforward. You sign up, and it prompts you to connect your accounts. A few clicks to authorize Google and Slack, and you're mostly there. Now, I have to address the elephant in the room: privacy. Giving an app this level of access to my private conversations, emails and meetings felt… a little nerve-wracking at first. It's like giving a new robot butler the keys to your entire house.
I did some digging on their site, and they're very upfront about their security measures. They talk about enterprise-grade security and encryption, and state that your data is yours, not theirs to sell or peek at. That provided some peace of mind. For any tool like this to work, you have to accept a certain trade-off between privacy and convenience. For me, the potential to reclaim my sanity was worth the calculated risk.
Visit Hoop
Putting Hoop to the Test: My Week of Automated Task Management
With everything connected, I decided to just live my normal, chaotic work life and see what Hoop would do. I tried to forget it was even there, which is really the whole point.
Slack Without the Constant Anxiety
My company's Slack is a beautiful nightmare. It's where work gets done, but it's also where memes are born and lunch plans are debated. Action items can get buried in a thread faster than you can type `:taco:`. This is where Hoop first impressed me. I was in a marketing channel, and a manager wrote, "Hey, can someone pull the latest traffic numbers for the Q3 report?" I saw it, made a mental note, and promptly got distracted by another notification.
An hour later, I checked my Hoop list. There it was: "Pull the latest traffic numbers for the Q3 report." It had captured it perfectly. It's not just looking for "@ mentions"; its AI is smart enough to understand the intent behind the language. This alone cut down on my fear of missing something important in a fast-moving channel.
Meetings That Don't Require a Scribe
This is the feature that feels like actual magic. You know those other AI notetakers that have to join your meeting as a participant, announcing to everyone that "This meeting is being recorded by Fathom.bot"? Hoop doesn't do that. It works in the background, analyzing the audio from your Google Meet or Zoom call after the fact to pull out tasks. It's delightfully sneaky.
After a 45-minute project sync-up, I not only had a list of 4-5 action items assigned to me (and others), but Hoop also generated a full transcript and a neat summary of the meeting. This is huge. If a task felt a bit vague, I could just click to read the transcript from that part of the conversation for full context. It’s like having perfect recall on demand.
Finally Taming the Inbox
Email is my other nemesis. Hoop's email integration works similarly, scanning for phrases that sound like commitments. It did a pretty good job, pulling out things like "Could you follow up with Brian on this?" and adding it to my list. It wasn’t perfect—it sometimes missed a nuanced request or picked up something that wasn't a real task—but the hit rate was surprisingly high.
The Good, The Bad, and The AI-Powered
Okay, so after a few weeks, I've got some strong feelings. The biggest win for me was the mental offloading. The constant, low-level anxiety that I'm forgetting something? It mostly vanished. Just knowing there's a safety net is a game-changer for focus. The AI-powered organization is also slick, automatically adding labels and helping prioritize tasks. And the shared lists feature means I can zap a task over to a teammate directly from Hoop, which is great for delegation.
But it's not a flawless system. The AI, as smart as it is, is still an AI. A few times, it created a task from a sarcastic comment I made in Slack, which was funny but required a manual deletion. You still need to be the human supervisor, curating the list it generates. This isn't a set-it-and-forget-it panacea. It's more of a powerful assistant that needs a little guidance. And then there's the price...
So, How Much Does This Digital Butler Cost?
Hoop doesn't come cheap. As of my review, the pricing is straightforward but steep for some.
Hoop Pro Plan: $59 per month
For that price, you get everything: automated task capture from email, meetings, and Slack, the smart organization features, shared lists for collaboration, unlimited meeting summaries, and task exporting through Zapier. There's no tiered system; you're either in or you're out. They do offer a 7-day free trial, which I highly suggest you take for a spin.
Is it worth it? Honestly, it depends entirely on your role and how much you value your time and mental clarity. For a busy executive or a project manager juggling multiple teams, $59 a month to prevent even one critical task from slipping through the cracks is a no-brainer. For a freelancer or someone on a tighter budget, it might be a harder sell.
Who is Hoop Actually For?
I’ve been thinking about the ideal Hoop user. This tool is built for the modern, communication-heavy professional. If your workday is a constant barrage of back-to-back Zoom calls, a never-ending stream of Slack notifications, and an inbox that's always threatening to overflow, Hoop will feel like a lifeline. It’s for team leads, product managers, agency folks, and executives.
If your work is more heads-down, solo-focused, or doesn't involve a ton of meetings and real-time chat, then the value proposition gets a little weaker. It’s a tool designed to solve the problem of high-velocity communication overhead.
The Verdict: Is Hoop the Future of Productivity?
After using it, I'm convinced that this type of tool is the future. We're moving away from manual data entry and toward intelligent, ambient systems that work for us in the background. Hoop is one of the best examples I've seen of this shift. It's not just another app to manage; it's an intelligent layer that sits on top of your existing workflow to make it better.
It has its quirks and the price is a serious consideration. But the core promise—to forget nothing—is incredibly powerful. It successfully captured 90-95% of my tasks without me lifting a finger, saving me time and, more importantly, a significant amount of mental energy. For my chaotic brain, that's a pretty compelling argument.
Frequently Asked Questions about Hoop
How does Hoop get meeting tasks without a bot joining my call?
Hoop integrates with your Zoom or Google account directly. After a meeting ends, it accesses the meeting's recording/audio file to process it for tasks, summaries, and a transcript. This means it's completely invisible to other participants, which is a huge plus.
Is Hoop secure with my company's data?
According to their website, they take security seriously. They use enterprise-grade security protocols and encryption to protect your data. They are also explicit that they do not sell user data. However, as with any third-party app, you should review their privacy policy to make sure you're comfortable with the access you're granting.
Can I share tasks with people who don't use Hoop?
The core collaboration features like shared lists work best between Hoop users. However, because Hoop consolidates your tasks, it makes it easier for you to then delegate them through your normal channels like email or Slack. Plus, the Zapier integration means you could potentially set up a workflow to send tasks to other project management tools like Asana or Trello.
Does Hoop integrate with Microsoft Teams?
Based on the information available on their site, the primary integrations are Slack, Zoom, Google Meet, and Email (Gmail/Outlook). While they don't list a direct Teams integration at the moment, it's worth checking their site for the latest updates as platforms like this are always adding new connections.
Is there a free trial?
Yes, Hoop offers a 7-day free trial with no credit card required. This is a great way to connect your accounts and see if it actually works for your specific workflow before committing to the monthly subscription.
At the end of the day, Hoop represents a tantalizing glimpse into a future where our tools do the administrative heavy lifting, freeing us up to do the work that matters. It’s not quite perfect yet, but it’s damn close. And for anyone feeling buried by their own productivity systems, it might just be the breath of fresh air you’ve been looking for.
