Relay closes as Notion Mail prepares to shut down

Relay, a five-year-old alternative to Zapier, has shut down entirely. It used AI agents to automate email and task workflows, putting its closure directly in the path of customers’ routine work.

Lauren Forristal reports in TechCrunch that Relay struggled as OpenAI, Google and other larger platforms built similar automation into their own tools. This is a complete shutdown, rather than a feature being withdrawn from an otherwise continuing service.

Notion Mail has a closing date

Notion Mail is scheduled to shut down on 22 September. Launched in April 2025, the product used AI to organise and automate inboxes. Notion found that users were instead employing separate AI agents to handle their email.

The two closures reflect different pressures. Relay faced automation being built into larger platforms; Notion Mail faced users choosing agents outside its email product. Neither outcome means the underlying jobs have disappeared.

For users, the useful next step is to list the email actions and task workflows that depended on either service, then check their replacements individually. A replacement that handles messages may not reproduce the task automation attached to them.