What an AI interview assistant actually does
An AI interview assistant is a desktop or browser tool that listens to a live conversation, transcribes it, and gives the interviewee an on-screen answer suggestion in seconds — ideally fast enough to use mid-sentence. The four jobs it has to do well:
- Capture both sides of the call (system audio + microphone) without breaking the meeting tool.
- Transcribe with low latency and reasonable accuracy across accents and technical jargon.
- Detect intent — was that a question, a follow-up, or just thinking aloud?
- Render a response somewhere the interviewer can't see, so it actually helps instead of breaking your eye contact and your composure.
Where most AI interview tools fall down
Browser extensions and Electron wrappers don't survive screen share. The moment you share your desktop, your interview tool either becomes invisible to you (because it's part of the shared frame) or visible to them (because the OS draws it on the captured surface).
The other failure mode is latency. If a "real-time" assistant takes 4–6 seconds to surface an answer, you've already had to start talking. By the time the answer appears, you're committed to a different sentence and the help becomes a distraction.
How Cloak does it
- NSPanel overlay. Cloak draws into a non-capturable
NSPanelwithsharingType: .none. macOS treats the window as private at the window-server level — screen recorders, Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet all skip it. - Native audio pipeline. Audio capture is Rust, not Electron. System audio comes through CoreAudio taps. Microphone runs through CPAL with a voice-activity gate so we only transcribe speech.
- Streamed LLM responses. The first useful token usually lands in under 900 ms when paired with a fast provider. You read the answer as you speak, not after.
- Persona prompts. Cloak Pro ships expert personas — technical interview, sales call, recruiter screen, lecture — each one is a full system prompt swap, not just a surface-level tweak.
What it doesn't do
Cloak does not autopilot you. It will not unmute your mic, take your turn, generate your facial expression, or know what your interviewer is thinking. It's a copilot. The work of being coherent, confident, and honest is still yours.
Honest caveats
Some organizations and certifications explicitly prohibit AI assistance during evaluations. We are very clear in our Terms that respecting those rules is on you. Use Cloak in interviews where AI assistance is allowed or unspecified, in prep sessions, in your own meetings — anywhere it makes you better at your real job.
Try Cloak as your interview assistant
Free tier with Bring-Your-Own-Key works on day one. Pro adds resume-grounded answers, persona modes, and a company dossier for the role you're prepping for. Download from the home page.