We've been listening. You told us the Assistant felt fragmented, clunky, and — let's be honest — like it was duct-taped together behind the scenes. You weren't wrong. So we hit pause, rolled up our sleeves, and gave the Assistant the redesign it deserves.
Welcome to a fully unified, context-aware experience that makes chatting with Highlight's Assistant more intuitive, seamless, and just plain enjoyable.
This is now available on our beta release channel.
Out with the old
Let's face it — the old Assistant was three different interfaces in a trench coat.
What wasn't working:
- Summoning Highlight was a completely different interface than talking with Highlight
- App context attachments were awkward to manage
- Handling audio notes, clipboard text, and such was painful
- The jump between minimized assistant, new chats, and ongoing conversations felt jarring
In with the new
We rebuilt the Assistant with one core mission:
A unified experience, always aware of your context.
We didn't just slap on a new UI. We reimagined how you start conversations, attach context, and keep things flowing smoothly.
Starting new chats
Starting chats now feels intentional and informed:
- App context is still auto-attached for new chats, so you're not starting from scratch
- Get contextual shortcuts based on your current activity
- Bulk add or remove attachments with ease
- Resume recent chats with one click
Continuing chats
You can open any recent chat from a brief preview of recent chat history in the Assistant.
Continuous app context is no longer automatic after a chat has started. You'll now explicitly choose when to re-attach app context — more control, no unwanted context bleed.
Attachments, reimagined
We've completely streamlined how attachments work — no more friction.
- Still attach everything you could before
- Now preview attachments — yes, including PDFs
- Drag and drop files into the Assistant
- Bulk add or remove attachments
- And most importantly: attach anything, anytime — whether you're starting fresh or continuing a chat
- Use cmd + enter / ctrl + enter to submit your message without any attachments
Off-screen words
"Full page text" has been renamed to off-screen words. In some apps, Highlight can detect text that exists beyond the screen. To protect your privacy, you'll need to explicitly choose to include this content in your attachment.
- Hover over app context to preview off-screen words
- Add or remove them from your attachment
- Control it per app window
The little things
A lot of love went into making this design not only better, but pleasant to use. The animations are smoother, performance has improved, and the UI is more responsive than ever.
Leave your feedback
This wasn't just a redesign — it was a complete rewrite of the code that powers our assistant interface. There may be some quirks or bugs we haven't squashed yet. If you run into any, please leave us feedback in our Discord.
Other notable changes
Farewell, 3rd-party Assistant apps
Back in our alpha days, the Assistant could pass context to third-party LLM tools. But that era is over.
We're now laser-focused on delivering the best first-party AI experience possible — tailored, optimized, and deeply integrated. As part of that vision, we've removed 3rd-party app support from the Assistant. A full deprecation is coming later this year.
But don't worry: we're still investing heavily in a rich ecosystem of shortcuts, integrations, and MCPs.
Spotlight retired (macOS)
On macOS, you could use Highlight for a "Spotlight" experience to open apps. With the shift in design focusing on chatting and attachments, that functionality has been removed.
What's next?
Building on this new foundation, we're focused on unifying the entire Highlight experience. Currently, there are 3 ways to interact with Highlight:
- On-screen Assistant
- Magic Dot (new)
- Full app window
Our approach of having small teams iterate quickly and independently has helped us ship and test new features rapidly with you. While this created some temporary inconsistencies, we're now bringing everything together.
Stay tuned for more updates. As always, we'd love to hear your thoughts on Discord.