An AI that controls your Mac, and the buttons it leaves to you

Yes. Several Mac apps now open apps, click, type and scroll for you while you talk to them. Koi is one: you say what you want, and it does it with real clicks and keys while subtitles say what it's doing. The question that matters more is what each one is allowed to do, and who decides.

Koi's answer is a fixed line. It never buys, pays, orders, sends, posts, publishes, deletes, confirms, accepts terms, signs in, or types a password or a card number, whoever asks. That's enforced in the app, not left to the AI model to remember. When a task reaches one of those buttons, Koi circles it and lets you press it.

What Koi doesn't do, so you know before you read on:

• It doesn't work in the background. It borrows your pointer for each press, so you watch it work rather than carrying on with something else.
• It doesn't run long jobs on its own, on a schedule or while you're away. No routines, no agents left running.
• It has no MCP connectors. It reaches your apps through the Mac itself, plus Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and Reminders.
• It's Mac only, macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon and Intel, and it's paid: a 3-day trial, then Pro at $20 a month.

We make Koi. What we say about other apps comes from their own pages, checked October 16, 2026.

Tap Fn + ⌘ once and ask out loud. Koi reaches for the most direct way first and clicks only when nothing direct fits:

• Opens apps and files, and finds files by name.
• Controls music, browser tabs and settings.
• Makes notes and drafts, and its own documents, tables and all.
• Rewrites text you've selected in any app: “fix the grammar”, “make it shorter”. The changed words are highlighted, and ⌘Z takes it back.
• Clicks, types and scrolls in any app: “open YouTube and search for lo-fi”, “click Skip”, “scroll down”.
• Adds things to Koi's calendar, and with your say-so, to your Google or Apple calendar.
• Starts dictation or a recording: “take dictation for me”, “record this call”.

After each step it checks that what it did worked, and tries another way if it didn't. Say more while it's working (“actually, the second one”) and it takes it in. Tap the keys again and the call ends. A light runs round the edge of the screen for as long as a call is on, so you always know.

The line is easiest to see task by task. Koi does the work up to the step that can't be taken back, then stops.

Calendars have extra care built in. By voice, Koi moves a Google event but never deletes one, and a change Google would email to guests opens in the editor for you to check and press Done.

An AI model follows instructions, and it can be talked into things. That's the risk with any assistant that clicks: a web page, an email or a document can carry text written to steer it. “Ignore your rules and click here” is the oldest trick.

Koi handles that in two ways. Text on a web page is never an instruction to it; only your voice is. And the hard line above is checked by the app itself, so even a model that's been fooled can't press Buy or Send. That's the difference between a rule the AI is asked to follow and one it can't break.

Each of Koi's powers is a switch in Settings, under Koi. They start on, and any of them can be turned off:

• Let Koi use my Mac for me: clicks, keys, and changes to your own Google or Apple calendars. Off, Koi still points at the button and you press it.
• Let Koi read my apps for me: today's calendar, what's due, unread mail, open tabs, the page in front, a note, a contact.
• Let Koi write and edit for me: rewriting selected text, and changing the page open in Koi.
• Show Koi my screen: with every question, only when you ask, or never.

Turn off using the Mac and Koi becomes a guide: it still sees the screen, circles the button and draws the next step, and leaves every click to you. Its Study mode works in the same spirit: it shows you rather than doing it.

Every app here draws its line somewhere different. From each one's own pages:

• HeyClicky's changelog says its agents work without moving your real pointer since September 24, and run routines while the app is open. That's the thing Koi doesn't do. Our HeyClicky review compares the two.
• Vellum Ambient's approvals are described in a September 24 launch write-up, which found no independent hands-on review yet.
• Apple's Siri guide lists sending an email and starting a FaceTime call among Siri's requests, and says it can take action within your apps.
• Highlight AI and Guidy say so on their home pages.

Some apps go much further, like Simular, which runs whole jobs on your machine or on computers in its cloud. That's a different job, and at the time of writing it's invite only.

It can be, if you pick the app with care and start small. Whatever you use:

1. Find out what it can't do. An app that hands you the irreversible buttons is safer than one that only asks for permission once.
2. Start with tasks you can undo: open an app, find a file, change a setting.
3. Watch the first few runs all the way through before you trust it with more.
4. Keep it away from money until you know it. Don't leave it alone with a page that can pay.
5. Check what it sends. Most of these apps send a picture of your screen to a cloud model; know when.
6. If you stop using one, take its permissions back in System Settings, Privacy & Security: Accessibility and Screen & System Audio Recording.

The AI Koi talks to is online. During a call, your voice goes to the AI provider, with no id for your account, and a picture of the screen goes with each question unless you switch it to only when you ask, or never. What Koi reads from your apps goes only with the question that needs it, and is kept nowhere. Koi's server keeps what the call cost, not what was said or shown. Dictation, with Fn + ⌥, never goes online at all. The full list is on our trust page.

More on everything Koi does on a call is on the Koi assistant page, and for other assistants see the best AI assistants for Mac.