A virtual executive assistant, next to an AI one
Airmond gives you an assistant you reach by phone, WhatsApp and email, who makes the calls you keep putting off. They are artificial intelligence rather than a person, and this is the comparison we would want to read before spending $999 a month, including the parts where hiring somebody is the better answer.
$999/month after your free week · cancel any time
The other side first
What a human virtual executive assistant is better at
Start with the half that does not flatter us. A person you hire brings things an Airmond assistant cannot, and if the work you have in mind is on this list then the honest advice is to hire the person and come back to this page for whatever is left over.
None of these are gaps in a roadmap. They are properties of being a human being with a name, a reputation and a signature, and no amount of shipping closes them.
- Judgement with consequences.A call that trades one relationship against another, or commits you to something you cannot easily undo, wants somebody who carries the outcome with you.
- Relationships that are theirs, not yours.A good executive assistant becomes known to your board, your clients and your family, and that standing is earned over years by one person being the same person every time.
- Being in the room.Meeting the courier, walking a document across a building, setting up a room, sitting in a meeting and reading it. None of that happens down a phone line.
- Accountability somebody signs for.Where the work needs a named person a regulator, a counterparty or a court can hold to a decision, that has to be a person, and it cannot be us.
- Discretion you wrote the contract for.Somebody you employ is bound by an agreement you set. What we offer instead is a published account of where your data sits and who can reach it, which is a different kind of assurance rather than a stronger one.
Our side
What an AI assistant is better at
Now our half, and none of it is a claim about the future. These are properties of the thing being software, which is what makes two in the morning on a Sunday cost exactly the same as a Tuesday afternoon.
Every Airmond assistant is artificial intelligence and says so on the call. We lead with that rather than working around it, because it is the whole reason the list below is possible.
- Two in the morning, and weekends.The cancelled flight at eleven at night is handled at eleven at night, not on Monday morning.
- Two things at the same moment.One of them can be on the phone with the garage while another drafts your email reply. There is no queue behind a single pair of hands.
- No notice period, at either end.One of them is ready for you within a couple of minutes of you leaving your number, your first call is whenever you say, and you stop by saying so. Nothing to advertise, shortlist or hand over.
- They do not resign.No holiday to cover, no sick day, no better offer somewhere else, and nothing that walks out of the door knowing how you like things done.
- It gets sharper every week.Your people, your preferences, how you like things said. Asked once, and kept from then on.
What they work from
Both of them end up inside your calendar, mail and files
This is the part of the decision people leave until last and should not. Whoever you pick, human or otherwise, ends up with your diary, your inbox and your documents, and the difference is not whether that happens but whether you can read exactly how far it goes.
Connect Google or Microsoft and an assistant can see what is already on your calendar, follow what is landing in your mail, and find the document instead of asking you to dig it out. What they can reach is a property of the permission we ask for, not a policy we promise to keep. On your calendar the scope lets an assistant create, edit or delete any event on it. What we actually do with that reach is our own promise rather than Google's or Microsoft's: only a meeting you asked them to book, and only with you as the organiser, checked in our code every time before anything is written.
On Google they can also leave a draft in your mail and file a document into your own Drive. Nothing we build sends from your mailbox, and Google has no draft-only permission, so weigh that one as our restraint rather than as a limit somebody else set. The Drive permission is the other way round: it reaches nothing but what an assistant made there, and that narrowing is the scope's, so filing something for you never becomes editing everything you own.
The decision
How to actually choose between the two
One rule settles most of it. If the job is being in a room, holding a relationship, or putting a name on a decision, hire the person. If the job is the phone, the inbox, the diary, travel and the follow-ups, an assistant does it now, at any hour, for a fraction of a salary.
The second question is whether you have enough of that work to justify employing somebody. A great many people who want an executive assistant do not, and the reason they never hire one is that the smallest unit on sale is a whole person.
- Hire the person ifthe job is presence, a relationship somebody owns, or work that needs a signature.
- Start with an assistant ifthe job is the phone, the inbox, the diary, travel and the chasing, and it happens at hours nobody wants to work.
- Do both ifyou already have somebody good and they are spending their week on scheduling and follow-ups rather than on what you hired them for.
The honest part
What an Airmond assistant will not do
Two different lists, so worth keeping apart. Above is what a person does better; this is what an assistant of ours will not do at all. The first four are the same four our own members are shown on the day they join.
Two more belong on that list and are not on that page. Your account lives in Europe and your voice does not: profile, tasks, messages and call notes sit in Postgres in Ireland and Frankfurt, while call audio and transcripts are processed and stored by ElevenLabs, our voice provider, in the United States, because European voice residency is an enterprise feature we are not on today. And a small Airmond team can reach member data through an internal admin tool, because that is how the service gets run and how a call that went wrong gets looked into.
- They will not guess.When they do not have what they need they ask you once, in the same place you were already talking, and then get on with it.
- They will not pretend to be a person.Every Airmond assistant is artificial intelligence, with a name and a voice of their own, and nobody here is on a call pretending to be one.
- They are not an engineer, a marketer or an accountant.When work needs one of those they say so and hand it over rather than having a go at it.
- They are not something you operate.No prompts to write, no settings to tune, no dashboard to learn. If you can take a phone call, you are already working with them.
The arithmetic
$999 a month, beside what the role actually pays
There are two ways people buy a virtual executive assistant: employ one, or rent one by the hour through an agency. We can cite what the role pays, because a government statistics agency publishes it. We cannot cite an agency rate, because every figure on the open web comes from somebody selling the service, so that row says so rather than guessing.
| Compared on | An Airmond assistant | A human virtual executive assistant |
|---|---|---|
| What it costs | $999 a month, which is $11,988 a year. One price, everything included, cancel any time. | The US median wage for the role is $76,590 a year. Through an agency it is an hourly rate instead, and there is no published figure we would stand behind. |
| What sits on top of the wage | Nothing. No usage meter, no task count, no per-call charge and no seat to add. | US employers spent $49.32 an hour on total compensation in March 2026, of which $15.60 was benefits rather than wages. That is 31.6 percent on top, and it applies to an employee rather than a contractor. |
| When it starts | Today. Leave your number and one of them is ready for you within a couple of minutes. | After a search, a shortlist, interviews, references and a notice period. |
| The hours | Any hour, every day. They do not go home, take holiday or call in sick. | The hours you agree, minus leave, and somebody has to cover it. |
| Being in the room | Never. There is no physical presence at all, and none is coming. | Yes, if they are near you. This is a row a person plainly wins. |
| Judgement somebody carries | Bounded, and said out loud. When work needs an engineer, a marketer or an accountant they say so and hand it over rather than having a go. | Yes. Somebody can be held to a call they made, which is most of what you are buying at the top of this market. |
| Whether it is a person | No. Artificial intelligence, and they say so on the call. | Yes, with the discretion and the accountability that comes with employing one. |
| Stopping | Cancel any time. Tell your assistant, or write to us, and the billing stops. | Notice, a handover, and a conversation nobody enjoys. |
- The $76,590 median wage for a human executive assistant: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics: Executive Secretaries and Executive Administrative Assistants (43-6011), May 2025 national estimate
- The $49.32 an hour of total compensation, of which $15.60 is benefits: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, civilian workers, March 2026 national estimates
Questions people ask about this
Is a virtual executive assistant the same as an AI assistant?
No. A virtual executive assistant is a person working remotely, employed by you or rented through an agency, and you are buying their judgement, their relationships and their time. An AI assistant is software: it works at any hour, does two things at once and never resigns, and it cannot be in a room or put a name on a decision. Which one you want depends entirely on which of those the work needs.
What does a virtual executive assistant cost?
If you employ one, the US median wage for the role is $76,590 a year, and across all US civilian workers in March 2026 employers spent another 31.6 percent of total compensation on benefits on top of wages. If you rent one through an agency it is an hourly rate, and we deliberately do not print a figure for that because every published one comes from a company selling the service. Airmond is $999 a month, which is $11,988 a year, with the first week free.
What can a human virtual executive assistant do that Airmond cannot?
Be in a room, meet somebody, carry a relationship that belongs to them rather than to you, and put a name on a decision that a regulator or a counterparty can hold them to. Those are not features we are building. If the work you have in mind is on that list, hire the person.
Can I have both?
That is often the right answer. If you already have somebody good and they are spending their week on scheduling, chasing and phone calls, an Airmond assistant takes that off them and gives you back the person you actually hired. Nothing about this is exclusive.
Is an Airmond assistant a real person?
No, and we would rather say so plainly than let you wonder. Every Airmond assistant is artificial intelligence, with a first name, a face and a voice of their own. They pick up at two in the morning, they never take a holiday, and they get sharper about your preferences every week. Nobody at Airmond is on the phone pretending to be one.
The cheapest way to settle this is one free week.
They're ready when you are.
Your assistant is a couple of minutes away.