A New AI Feature Helps Your Desktop Assistant Remember Your Daily Work
A major update is coming to the AI assistant on desktop computers. This new update allows the artificial intelligence helper and its coding companion to learn from what you do on your computer, even when you are working in other programs. By tracking your activity, the assistant can help you stay organized and get more done throughout the day.
This new capability is called the computer history feature. It is designed to replace an older, experimental tool that was tested earlier. Instead of starting from scratch, the creators rebuilt the system to make it much more useful and secure for everyday office work.
How the Activity Tracking Tool Works
The main goal of the computer history feature is to build a searchable timeline of your digital day. It keeps track of what you do across different applications and websites. However, the way it gathers this information has changed significantly from the older experimental version.
The previous test version of the tool relied on taking constant screenshots of your computer screen. The new version works differently to protect your privacy and use less computer power. Instead of taking pictures of your screen, it monitors your system actions. It does this by using the computer's built-in accessibility settings. The tool pays attention to specific actions, including:
- When you click your mouse on different items
- What you type on your keyboard
- The keyboard shortcuts you use to navigate
- When you switch from one application to another
By looking at these actions, the AI assistant can understand the context of your work without needing to look at your screen directly. This allows the tool to create a detailed map of your tasks over time.
How This Feature Can Help You Every Day
Once the computer history feature is turned on, it acts as a digital memory for your work. You can chat with the AI assistant to help you recall details that you might have forgotten. Here are some of the ways you can use this tool to make your workday easier:
- Catch up after a break: If you step away from your desk, you can ask the AI assistant to remind you of exactly what you were doing before you left.
- Find lost documents: You can ask the assistant to help you locate a specific file or website that you viewed earlier in the day.
- Summarize your day: At the end of the afternoon, you can ask the tool to write a quick summary of all the tasks you completed.
- Create helpful shortcuts: The AI can recognize tasks that you do over and over again. It can then suggest ways to turn those repetitive steps into automatic shortcuts to save you time in the future.
Who Can Access the New Feature?
This tool is not available to everyone just yet. It is currently being rolled out to users who pay for premium versions of the AI service. This includes individual professional users, as well as business and enterprise accounts.
For safety and privacy, the feature is turned off by default. Individual premium users must go into their settings and turn it on themselves. For people who use the software at work, a company computer administrator must first grant permission. Once the administrator allows it, individual employees can decide whether they want to turn the tracking on.
Additionally, the feature is not yet available in all parts of the world. Due to strict local data laws, users living in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the European Economic Area cannot use this feature at this time.
Keeping Your Personal Information Safe
Privacy is an important concern when a program tracks your computer activity. Several rules and tools are in place to help protect your private information. First, there are certain things the tool will never record:
- It does not take screenshots or record video of your screen.
- It does not record your microphone or capture any computer audio.
- It completely ignores any activity that happens inside private browsing windows.
Users also have full control over what the AI remembers. Through the settings menu, you can look at your timeline and see exactly what has been recorded. You can choose to delete specific items, or you can wipe out your history from the last ten minutes, the last hour, the entire day, or all time. You can also pause the tracking whenever you need a break.
The data itself is handled carefully. The raw information about your clicks and typing is saved on your computer for only 48 hours. This data is sent to the company's servers to be turned into simplified written memories, but the company does not keep the raw data or use it to train future AI models. Once the memories are created, they are saved back onto your computer as simple text files that you can delete whenever you want.
Important Safety Precautions
While this tool is highly useful, there are a few safety risks to keep in mind. One risk is a security vulnerability where hidden instructions on a website or app can trick the AI. This can happen if you visit a malicious website or open a bad file while the tracking tool is active. The hidden malicious text on that website could trick the AI assistant into doing something you did not intend.
To stay safe, it is highly recommended that you pause the tracking feature when you are viewing highly sensitive information. You should also turn the feature off when you are communicating with other people who have not given you permission to record your interactions with them.