The short answer: text your question to +1 252-486-5323 (that's 252-GUMLEAF) and an AI answer comes back as a regular SMS, usually within seconds. No app to install, no account to create, no internet needed on your end. The first 10 answers each month are free (30 in your first month).
That's the whole tutorial. Everything below is detail.
Because SMS is the one channel that works on every phone ever sold and on almost no infrastructure. App-based assistants need a smartphone, a data connection, and an account. A text message needs one bar - and with satellite texting, not even that. GumLeaf exists for the situations the apps quietly assume away:
Off the grid. iPhone 14 and later can text over satellite with no cell coverage at all, and T-Mobile's Starlink direct-to-cell does the same for most recent phones. GumLeaf is one of the very few general-purpose AI assistants you can reach that way - there's a whole page on the backcountry case.
Dumb phones. Flip phones, the Light Phone, Punkt, a decade-old Nokia in a drawer: if it texts, it can ask GumLeaf anything. Details here.
One-bar purgatory. Tunnels, tarmacs, rural highways - places where a browser spins forever but a text crawls through. That page is here.
Anything, like any AI assistant - plus live data that's fetched, not guessed: real weather forecasts (US and Norway), sunrise/sunset, TIDE times, AIR quality, live NYC subway / BART / Caltrain / Norway transit departures, and FLIGHT UA123-style flight status. Send a photo with your question and it looks at the picture. Text MENU for the full command list.
GumLeaf's number is a US number: texting it from a US or Canadian plan is covered by normal messaging; from elsewhere it's an international text. Standard AI caveats apply - answers can be wrong, and it is not an emergency service. There's no conversation memory: each text stands alone, which is also why nothing you ask is kept around.