Raycast adds a new way to ask AI about whatever is on your screen

Raycast has a new feature called Screen Awareness, which lets users bring context from their active app or window directly into AI Chat. Here are the details.

Raycast AI can now work with what’s on your screen

Depending on how you use AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Raycast AI, there is a good chance you have to keep copying and pasting text, uploading screenshots, or explaining the context of what you are working on before asking for help.

Raycast was recently updated with a feature that is intended to streamline this workflow, giving Raycast AI direct access to the content of the focused window.

The feature, called Screen Awareness, “brings context from your focused app or window into AI Chat or Quick AI, so you don’t have to copy text, attach screenshots, or explain what you’re looking at,” says Raycast.

Use the Send Focused Window to AI command, choose Screen Awareness from the @ menu, or simply ask “summarise this” or “reply to this”.

When activated, the context sent to Raycast AI can include app and window details, selected text, the focused control, and a screenshot of the focused window.

On the Mac, it can also provide information about selected files or folders when triggered from Finder, while Raycast’s Browser Companion lets it pull in webpage details and content beyond what is currently visible onscreen.

According to the company, users can set up a hotkey to trigger Screen Awareness through a short onboarding guide that appears the first time they use the command. Raycast says its team “likes to double-tap the right Command key.” Users can also set up keyboard shortcuts for related commands such as Send Selected Text to AI, Send Screen Area to AI, and Send Screen to AI.

Here’s the feature in action:

And here’s the full set of new features included inRaycast v0.71:

• AI: Send Focused Window to AI command includes richer app and window context
• AI: New Ask Screen Awareness AI Extension to quickly give context to Raycast
• AI: Added compaction and context management support
• Quick AI: “Send Message” AI setting is now respected by Quick AI as well which allows submitting queries on Command Return
• Dictation: Added a way to import your vocabulary and hotkeys from other apps
• Dictation: Added a new “Add Word to Vocabulary” command to add a selected word or entered argument into your vocabulary
• Feedback: New Ask Feedback AI Extension to contact the Raycast team
• Hotkeys: Added support for chords using a modifier held on both sides of the keyboard (e.g. left ⌘ + right ⌘), including recording and display in the hotkey recorder

To learn more about Raycast’s latest update, follow this link.

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