Emergent, the Bengaluru-based vibe-coding startup that raised $70 million from SoftBank, Khosla Ventures, and Lightspeed Venture Partners in January at a $300 million valuation, launched Wingman on April 15. The product is an autonomous AI agent that operates through WhatsApp and Telegram, targeting the same personal assistant category as OpenClaw and Anthropic’s Claude but with a fundamentally different distribution model: the agent lives inside messaging platforms already used by billions.
“The obvious next step for us was, can we help them not just build the software, but actually operate more autonomously through it?” CEO Mukund Jha told TechCrunch. “You move from software that supports the business to software that can actively help run it.”
Messaging as the Operating System
Wingman’s differentiation is its delivery mechanism. Where competitors require dedicated apps or desktop installations, Wingman runs inside WhatsApp and Telegram. Users scan a QR code, complete authentication, and the agent lives on their messaging platform of choice. It connects to email, calendars, and workplace software like Gmail and Slack, completing routine actions autonomously while seeking user approval for higher-stakes steps.
“It’s going to come with its own identity. So it’s going to have a phone number, it’s going to have an email,” Jha told Business Insider. “You would interact with it just like you would interact with a human employee, a human teammate, a human assistant.”
The messaging-first approach is a deliberate bet on global distribution. In India, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, WhatsApp is the primary business communication channel. Launching an AI agent inside WhatsApp means zero new app installs and zero UI learning curve. The agent exists where the work already happens.
“A lot of real work already happens through chat, voice, and email,” Jha told TechCrunch. “Increasingly, they’ll be the main ways we work with agents too.”
From Vibe Coding to Agent Execution
Emergent initially gained attention for its vibe-coding platform, which competes with Cursor and Replit by letting users without technical backgrounds build full-stack applications via natural language. More than 8 million builders have used the platform, with 1.5 million monthly active users, according to TechCrunch. The company generated $8.4 million in revenue in March alone, Jha told Business Insider.
Founded in 2025 by twin brothers Mukund and Madhav Jha through Y Combinator’s 2024 batch, Emergent reached $100 million in annual run rate within eight months. Wingman is the execution layer built on top of that creation platform: users built the software, now an agent can run it.
Security as a Selling Point
Jha acknowledged that the “potential downfall” of some AI agents and open platforms is their susceptibility to hacking and security breaches. Emergent invested in multiple red team assessments before launch.
Security features include no open permissions by default, flagging internet content as untrusted, and requiring draft review before emails go out, according to Business Insider. The “trust boundaries” architecture mirrors the human-in-the-loop design that Broadcom’s Tanzu Agent Foundations and Claude Cowork also emphasize: agents execute routine tasks freely but escalate consequential decisions to humans.
Jha also acknowledged limitations. “The system struggles around consistency in really ambiguous situations, messy edge cases, unclear goals, or workflows where a lot of human judgment is needed,” he told TechCrunch.
The Non-US Agent Market
Wingman is the clearest signal yet that the personal AI agent market is building from outside the US at credible scale. TechCrunch framed Emergent as entering “OpenClaw-like AI agent space.” Business Insider positioned Wingman as a direct competitor to both OpenClaw and NanoBot.
The competitive landscape is crowded. OpenClaw, Anthropic’s Claude, Microsoft, and Google are all building toward the same ambient computing category. Wingman’s bet is that distribution through WhatsApp and Telegram reaches the billions of users who will never install a dedicated AI app. Pricing starts with a small subscription fee followed by usage-based billing.
For builders targeting non-US markets, the strategic takeaway is clear: messaging-first delivery on platforms with 2+ billion users is a proven distribution strategy that sidesteps the app-install barrier entirely.