# Show HN: MySamantha – a productivity app where the AI is optional > Source: > Published: 2026-09-10 16:02:24+00:00 Most of the recent tools being developed are versions of the personal assistant that everyone has been promising for a long time. I see ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Instinct (now viral), Muse, and many more. When I started to build MySamantha I thought about building a personal assistant as well. Connect email and calendar accounts to it, add some memory and context, give it some tools and it'll do things for you. I did launch it before here, and we realized that we were putting the least permanent part of the system at the center. I started wondering why the Assistant had to be the main product? But before that, why do I need a personal assistant? I was on team productivity before and I only wanted the AI to make me more productive. I had Notion, Obsidian, Todoist and I used them to be more productive at work and since ChatGPT came, I started using that heavily. But one thing that continued to piss me off is the fact that I am unable to share context between what I wanted to do. Sure, I am going to complain what each of these productivity apps did. Every productivity app had so much enshittification with AI stuffed down my throat that even though I love AI, I stopped going into those apps. Agents and shit. I don't need that, give me back my simple note taking app which I always loved. Their MCPs? No. I had context all over. I wanted something simple. With Models increasing intelligence day by day and labs releasing more and more models, there's one thing I knew for sure. Idk which model I'll be using two years from now. But I know I'll still have my emails, calendars, notes, documents, tasks, meetings and everything I've accumulated. So we started building MySamantha around that instead (I launched MySamantha before here) Instead of a separate Notes app, Todo app, Email client or Calendar for everything, we built a place where I can work on all at the same place. Combine AI, connect my emails, my calendars associated with my work email, my Meeting Recorder are all here. At the same time, we don't want "everything in one place" to mean everything is stuck here. You can import from Notion, back your notes to both Notion and Google drive (as Google Docs), your to-do from Todoist or Microsoft To-do, import your vault from Obsidian, enjoy the same knowledge graph as Obsidian does, Export, etc., MySamantha sits on top of this. You can use any models. Bring your OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or even pay-as-you-go. If another model becomes better, change it. Don't like AI? switch it off. The product still works. The best part? everything is here in one place. Compare the meeting notes I had with the email I received to draft an email? yup, done. All context in one place. The Assistant becomes more useful, the more it knows about you. No model lock-ins. A pure productivity personal workspace where you can switch AI off if you don't need it. Feel free to check out what we're trying at [https://mysamantha.ai](https://mysamantha.ai) Curious to know what HN thinks about this. Feedbacks and Queries welcome. Comments URL: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49645994](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49645994) Points: 1 # Comments: 0