Vellum launches Ambient Assistants: a floating AI that sees and annotates any Mac app in real time
testingcatalog · x · 2026-09-25
Vellum has launched Ambient Assistants, a floating pill overlaying any Mac app that reads the screen in real time and can draw directly on top of it to point out what matters — replacing screenshots, pasted links and long prompts as context.
- Positioned for small and one-person businesses: one person can run ads, invoices, customer support and the website alone
- Example: an ambient session can walk users step by step through confusing ad-dashboard settings in QuickBooks or Shopify
- macOS interactions: double-press Fn to summon the assistant, hold Fn to switch to dictation mode for replying in any app; no background recordings
- Privacy: memory and credential vault run locally or in user-controlled cloud, with per-task permission for risky actions
Related event: Vellum Launches Ambient Assistants That See and Annotate Your Mac Screen(2 posts)→
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