Shortcuts creators debut Sky, a new Mac app for AI assistance

Eight years ago, Apple acquired popular automation app Workflow, which later became baked into iOS as Shortcuts. Now, two years removed from their time at Apple, two creators behind Workflow and Shortcuts have a new app coming to macOS: Sky, which brings AI assistance to the Mac.

Sky integrates deeply with macOS to offer AI powers across any app

Sky was unveiled today by two of its creators, Ari Weinstein and Conrad Kramer, both formerly of Apple after the company acquired Workflow and turned it into Shortcuts.

The new Mac app is launching this summer, but in the meantime, MacStories has an exclusive look at what Sky is all about.

Federico Viticci writes at MacStories:

Sky is an AI-powered assistant that can perform actions and answer questions for any window and any app open on your Mac. On the surface, it may look like any other launcher or LLM with a desktop app: you press a hotkey, and a tiny floating UI comes up.

You can see the app in action via a teaser video in which Sky is used to message a group chat, schedule a calendar event, find bar recommendations, and more.

Viticci’s piece provides many more examples, screenshots, and early looks at the power Sky promises to offer.

For example, Viticci highlights two core features:

What sets Sky apart from anything I’ve tried or seen on macOS to date is that it uses LLMs to understand which windows are open on your Mac, what’s inside them, and what actions you can perform based on those apps’ contents. It’s a lofty goal and, at a high level, it’s predicated upon two core concepts. First, Sky comes with a collection of built-in “tools” for Calendar, Messages, Notes, web browsing, Finder, email, and screenshots, which allow anyone to get started and ask questions that perform actions with those apps. If you want to turn a webpage shown in Safari into an event in your calendar, or perhaps a document in Apple Notes, you can just ask in natural language out of the box.

At the same time, Sky allows power users to make their own tools that combine custom LLM prompts with actions powered by Shortcuts, shell scripts, AppleScript, custom instructions, and, down the road, even MCP. All of these custom tools become native features of Sky that can be invoked and mixed with natural language.

Anyone eager to try Sky can join a waitlist by submitting their email on the app’s website.

Sky’s creators have a strong track record, and their next venture looks very exciting. It also feels like the kind of functionality Apple should be building into its platforms.

I’m very interested to see where things go from here, and highly recommend checking out Viticci’s full preview if you are too.

Are you interested in using Sky? Let us know in the comments.

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