Calendar tool Clockwise adds new AI-powered interface called Prism

Smart scheduling and calendar tool Clockwise is changing up its interface with an AI-powered assistant called Prism that lets you manage scheduling conflicts, create or clear events in bulk, and turn to-do lists into calendar blocks with text prompts.

Like rival startups YC-backed Vimcal and Reclaim, which got acquired by Dropbox this month, Clockwise is aimed at companies and focuses on streamlining schedules for teams — you can still use it as an individual, though.

The new AI assistant can turn typed instructions into calendar events — type a query like “Create a link to schedule a meeting with Severian next week,” and you’ll get a link or a text block to share your availability. And if your suggested timing for a meeting conflicts with another event, the tool will suggest an alternative time slot for the meeting.

Prism also lets you share a link of suggested meeting times other participants can respond to, and the link will surface potential confilicts, too.

But if you are planning an urgent meeting, Prism can look across different team members’ schedules and select an optimal time and automatically reschedule conflicting events.

You also get the ability to schedule tasks from a to-do list in your calendar and move them if you happen to get into a meeting. And if you want to schedule similar meetings with a bunch of people, you can type a prompt like, “Schedule 15 minute one-on-ones with Frank, Robin, Nami, and Tony.”

You can also use commands like “Reschedule my afternoon” or “Clear my Monday morning” to swifly reschedule tasks.

Matt Martin, CEO of Clockwise, told TechCrunch that the company is using a custom scheduling engine that interfaces with natural language queries and figures out the conflicts and optimal timings.

“I’ve seen a lot of startups try to naively connect LLMs directly to Google Calendar APIs. It’s no wonder those tools fall flat on their face when you press beyond anything but the simplest use cases. We’ve spent seven years building the most advanced scheduling engine in the world, and it’s that layer that enables Prism to quickly and reliably make decisions to find the best slots for tasks and meetings,” Martin said.

Clockwise is offering Prism for free to all customers, and working on deeper integration with Google Calendar and better support for weekly schedules.