Email startup Superhuman has taken a significant step in streamlining meeting scheduling with the launch of its availability-sharing feature, allowing users to share their free time slots and schedule meetings quickly. This new feature is integrated into Superhuman's built-in calendar, which the company is considering expanding into a standalone app.

While availability sharing is not a novel concept – Calendly, Cal.com, Vimcal, Notion, and Clockwise have offered similar features – Superhuman's move is significant given the typical three-email average it takes to schedule a meeting. The startup aims to simplify this process with its schedule-sharing tool.

To use the feature, Superhuman users can click on the share availability icon or use a keyboard shortcut (Cmd+Shift+A on Mac or Ctrl+Shift+A on Windows) to open the calendar and select time slots to share. The selected slots, along with a link, are then posted in the reply composer, allowing the recipient to book a time slot.

The feature also enables users to view the availability of team members when scheduling a meeting, making it easier to find a time that works for everyone. Additionally, users can ignore conflicts if the meeting is important and share all time slots.

Superhuman has been actively building out its calendar offering, having recently released Instant Event, an AI-powered feature that suggests meeting times based on email content. The company also offers a feature to schedule meetings through its AI assistant. Looking ahead, Superhuman plans to introduce features like automatic scheduling and meeting briefing dossiers to inform participants about meetings.

In an interview, Superhuman CEO Rahul Vohra expressed his vision for the company's calendar feature, stating that he sees value in both integrated and standalone calendar apps. Vohra believes that, in an ideal world, users would have both separate calendar and email apps, with the calendar tightly integrated into the email app. However, he acknowledges that there are use cases where a separate calendar app is more suitable, such as planning vacations or conference weeks.

Vohra's comments highlight the potential for Superhuman to release a separate calendar app, which could cater to users who prefer a dedicated calendar experience. This move would position Superhuman as a more comprehensive productivity platform, rather than just an email client.

The launch of Superhuman's availability-sharing feature and its exploration of a standalone calendar app demonstrate the company's commitment to enhancing meeting scheduling capabilities and improving user productivity. As the company continues to expand its calendar offering, it will be interesting to see how it balances the benefits of integrated and standalone calendar apps.