ai assistant for mac

AI Assistant for Mac

An AI assistant for Mac that actually sees your screen. Ask by voice, get on-screen guidance, and watch a guide cursor land on the button you need.

There's a specific frustration with Mac AI assistants: you're staring at the button you need, and the assistant still asks you to describe where it is.

Menu-bar apps fixed the access problem. Most didn't fix the context problem. You still alt-tab to a chat window and type a paragraph about your UI.

GuideLayer is an AI assistant for Mac that sees your screen, answers by voice, and sends a guide cursor to the control in front of you.

What actually works

Menu-bar native

Lives where Mac assistants should: one click or voice trigger away, without taking over the screen.

ScreenCaptureKit on demand

Screenshots fire when you ask, not continuously. Combined with the accessibility tree for precise element targeting.

Voice and agent modes

Quick questions by voice. Deeper work handed to background agents on your Codex subscription.

Tutor mode

Learn unfamiliar software with guided walkthroughs. Save sessions as replayable tutorials.

Workflow examples

Quick lookup without context switching

You're in a spreadsheet and need to find a setting in another app.

  1. 01Trigger GuideLayer by voice from the menu bar.
  2. 02Ask about what's on screen or switch apps and ask there.
  3. 03Follow the reticle. Back to work in under a minute.

Learning software for a new role

Promotion came with tools you've never used daily.

  1. 01Open the app. Start tutor mode.
  2. 02GuideLayer walks through tasks with on-screen pointers and voice narration.
  3. 03Save tutorials for workflows you'll repeat.

Private assistant on your own sign-ins

You don't want another cloud account with your screen data.

  1. 01Sign in with Claude Code and Codex already on the Mac.
  2. 02Privacy Center: screenshots off, encrypted memory, incognito when needed.
  3. 03Primary inference path stays on your subscriptions.

A Mac AI assistant that can't see your screen is a search box with a nicer icon. GuideLayer starts from what's actually open.

Common questions

Does GuideLayer work like ChatGPT in a browser tab?

No. It lives in the menu bar and reads what's on your Mac screen when you ask. You don't paste screenshots or describe your UI from memory.

Do I need a separate GuideLayer cloud account?

No. GuideLayer runs on your existing Claude Code and Codex sign-ins. Keys stay in Keychain. There's no GuideLayer server in the inference loop.

Can it point at buttons in any Mac app?

It works across native apps and browser tabs on your desktop. You trigger screen capture on demand, and a guide cursor lands on the control you need.

Related guides

Try GuideLayer on your Mac

Screen-aware, private, local-first. Download for Apple Silicon with Claude Code and Codex already signed in.

← GuideLayer homepage