How-to / macOS
How to get a system-wide AI assistant on your Mac in 2026
One hotkey. Every app. Your screen, your meetings, your terminal. Here is the actual setup, not a sidebar in a Chrome tab.
Install Whisply, grant Screen Recording and Microphone in System Settings, sign in, then press Cmd+Return from any app to summon a Mac-native AI overlay that sees what you see.
- Lives in the menu bar and answers from any app via Cmd+Return, no window-switching, no copy-pasting into a browser tab.
- Sees the active screen and hears the current meeting, so the answer arrives with context instead of a fresh prompt every time.
- Runs as a native macOS app with content protection on by default, so screen shares and recordings do not capture the overlay.
The overlay uses macOS content protection at the window-server level, so Zoom share, QuickTime recording, and most proctor screen captures see a blank region where Whisply is drawn.
Why the usual approaches fall short
- Browser extensions only see the active tab. Switch to Notion desktop, to Slack, to Xcode, and the assistant is gone. That is not system-wide, that is window-wide.
- Meeting bots dial into the call as a participant and record everyone in the room. Coworkers notice, clients notice, and the conversation gets stiffer the moment a recording bot appears in the participant list.
- Post-call transcription tools hand you a summary the next morning. By then the interview is over, the price was already agreed, and the question you fumbled is still fumbled.
- Generic cloud chatbots have no idea what is on your screen. You spend more time describing the situation than you would have spent solving it yourself.
- Multi-tool stacks (one app for notes, one for screenshots, one for transcription, one for chat) split context across four sign-ins and four monthly bills, and the right answer is always in the tool you did not open.
Step by step
- 1
Download the Mac app
Go to whisply.net/download and grab the Apple Silicon or Intel build that matches your machine. macOS 13 Ventura or later is required. The disk image is a single drag-to-Applications install, no installer wizard, no helper utilities lurking in the background.
- 2
Grant Screen Recording and Microphone
On first launch the app opens System Settings to Privacy and Security. Toggle Whisply on under Screen Recording so it can see the active window, and under Microphone so it can hear meeting audio. macOS will ask you to quit and reopen Whisply once, which is normal. Both permissions are revocable from the same panel any time.
- 3
Sign in and confirm the menu bar icon
Sign in with email. A small icon appears in the menu bar near the clock. That icon is the entire interface when the overlay is closed, which is most of the time. Click it once to see status, click and hold to pin settings.
- 4
Press Cmd+Return from any app
From Safari, from Final Cut, from Terminal, from a Zoom call, hit Cmd+Return. The overlay appears under your cursor, ready to take a question. Type, get a streamed answer, press Escape to dismiss. The whole loop is under two seconds for most prompts.
- 5
Turn on meeting assist for live calls
Before a call, open the menu bar icon and flip on meeting assist. Whisply listens to both sides of the audio through the system mixer and surfaces relevant context as the other person talks. Nothing dials into the meeting, no bot appears in the participant list, and the other side sees no indicator.
- 6
Enable Accessibility for Computer Use (Pro Undetected)
If you are on Pro Undetected, open System Settings, Privacy and Security, Accessibility, and toggle Whisply on. This is what lets the assistant click, type, and move through apps when you ask it to do a task. macOS will warn you that this is a powerful permission, which it is, so only grant it if you want Computer Use.
- 7
Customize the hotkey if Cmd+Return clashes
Some apps already use Cmd+Return for send. From the menu bar icon, open Settings and rebind the summon hotkey to anything you like, including chords like Cmd+Shift+Space. The new binding takes effect immediately, no relaunch needed.
What system-wide actually means on macOS
A browser extension is not system-wide. A Notion AI box is not system-wide. A chatbot that lives in its own tab is the opposite of system-wide. You still have to leave whatever you are doing, find a window, type the question with no context, and paste the answer back.
System-wide means the assistant is reachable from Final Cut, from Terminal, from a Zoom call, from a Word document, from the Notes app, from a Figma file, without leaving the surface you are working on. One hotkey, one overlay, same model regardless of the app underneath. The assistant reads the pixels and hears the audio, so you do not have to re-explain what is on the screen.
Whisply was built for this. It is a native macOS app for Apple Silicon and Intel, macOS 13 Ventura or later. It installs to the menu bar and answers from anywhere with Cmd+Return. The window floats above whatever you are doing and goes away the moment you stop needing it.
Why the macOS overlay model wins
The Mac has a thing Windows still does not: a real, fast, system-level overlay layer that any well-built app can sit on top of. That is how Spotlight feels instant. That is how Raycast feels instant. An AI assistant built the same way gets the same physics. The window appears under your cursor in under a frame, you type, you get an answer streamed in real time, you dismiss it. No tab, no loading state, no sign-in prompt every Tuesday.
Compare that to the alternative most people end up with: a Chrome tab pinned in the corner, a separate menu-bar app for transcription, a third tool for screenshots, and a fourth for meeting notes. Four tools, four logins, four monthly bills, four places where the context gets lost. A single overlay collapses that surface area into one keystroke.
The other quiet win is permissions. macOS treats Screen Recording, Microphone, and Accessibility as first-class, revocable, audited permissions. You can see exactly what the assistant is allowed to do in System Settings, you can flip it off when you do not want it, and the operating system enforces the boundary. Browser extensions cannot give you that.
What it should be able to do
A system-wide assistant on macOS is doing three jobs at once. It is reading the screen so you do not have to describe what you are looking at. It is listening to the meeting so you do not have to transcribe and paste. And on Whisply Pro Undetected, it is acting on the Mac through Accessibility, which means it can click, type, and move through real apps when you ask it to.
Real examples: highlight a paragraph in Pages, hit the hotkey, ask for a sharper version. Sit in a Google Meet, hear a question you half-know the answer to, glance at the overlay for the figure you forgot. Stare at a stack trace in Terminal, ask what is going wrong, get a fix that references the exact file path on screen. None of that requires copying anything anywhere.
Computer Use on Pro Undetected goes further. Ask it to clean up your downloads folder, fill out a long form across two tabs, or pull the same data point out of fifty PDFs. It uses macOS Accessibility the way a human uses a mouse, with the difference that it does not get bored.
Models, pricing, and what is actually included
The models are bundled. There is no OpenAI key to paste, no Anthropic console to register, no per-token meter ticking in the background. Free covers daily messages and the core meeting-assist surface, which is enough to feel whether the hotkey-overlay model fits the way you work. Pro is 19.99 dollars a month, or 11.99 a month on annual, and removes the message limits.
Pro Undetected is the tier built for the harder cases. It adds Computer Use, it adds the armed proctor-resistant mode, and it stays out of frame across LockDown Browser, Safe Exam Browser, Examplify, OnVUE, VUE Lock, Prometric, Honorlock, Guardian, Proctorio, Hawkes, Inspera, LMI Rescue, Meazure, Digiexam, Exam.net, SecureBr, ProctorTrack, ProProctor, Examity, Kryterion, Surpass, NBME, Gradescope. 149.99 monthly, 44.99 a month on annual. A 500 dollar one-time whitelist tier covers TestNav, ACT, and Edvistas.
All three tiers share the same overlay, the same hotkey, the same content-protection behavior. The difference is how much you can do and how invisible it is when you do it.
Related questions
Does Whisply work in every Mac app or just the browser?
Every Mac app. Whisply is a native macOS application that draws its overlay above whatever window is active. That includes Safari, Chrome, and Arc, and it also includes Final Cut, Logic, Xcode, Terminal, Slack desktop, Notion desktop, Word, Excel, Pages, Keynote, Zoom, Google Meet, FaceTime, and anything else that runs as a normal Mac window. There is no per-app integration to enable. The hotkey works the same in all of them.
Does it need an OpenAI or Anthropic API key?
No. Models are included in the subscription on every tier. There is no key to paste and no per-token meter to watch. Free covers a daily message allowance and the core meeting-assist features, Pro lifts the limits at 19.99 dollars a month or 11.99 a month on annual, and Pro Undetected adds Computer Use and the proctor-resistant overlay at 149.99 monthly or 44.99 a month on annual.
Will the overlay show up in screen recordings or screen shares?
By default, no. Whisply uses macOS content protection on the overlay window, which tells the window server not to include those pixels in screen captures. Zoom share, Google Meet share, QuickTime recording, and most proctor screen captures see a blank or solid region where the overlay is drawn. The rest of your screen captures normally.
What Macs and macOS versions are supported?
Apple Silicon (M1, M2, M3, M4 and later) and Intel Macs, running macOS 13 Ventura or later. The app is universal, so the same download works on both architectures. Newer Apple Silicon machines feel snappier because the overlay draws faster, but the experience on Intel is fully featured.
Can I use it during meetings without the other person knowing?
Yes. Whisply does not dial into the call, does not appear in the participant list, and does not show up on the other person's screen even if they are sharing yours back. It listens through your machine's audio and surfaces context only to you, in your overlay, which is hidden from screen sharing by default.
How is this different from Apple Intelligence or the built-in Siri?
Apple Intelligence and Siri are good at OS tasks like timers, reminders, and short writing edits inside Apple's own apps. Whisply is a real-time AI overlay built for the harder cases: live meeting assist with context, screen-aware answers in any third-party app, and Computer Use that drives the Mac for you on Pro Undetected. The two can coexist on the same machine without conflict.
Can I change the Cmd+Return hotkey?
Yes. Open the menu bar icon and go to Settings, Hotkey. Rebind to any combination, including chords like Cmd+Shift+Space or Ctrl+Option+W. The change is live immediately, no relaunch required, and the new binding works across every app the moment you confirm it.
Try Whisply free.
Mac only. macOS 13 or later. No bot in your calls.