Original video in Chinese.
Key Takeaway
- Through its AI Extensions, Raycast achieves the ideal form of an AI PC/Mac: seamlessly integrating all software and enabling cross-app orchestration through natural language interaction.
- Raycast’s AI Extensions provide natural language interaction, cross-app orchestration (through Presets), and AI chat features.
- With Raycast’s AI plugins, users can directly control the terminal, schedule meetings, manage tasks, and more without opening specific apps.
- Raycast’s AI chat feature supports multiple mainstream LLMs and can be made more efficient with keyboard shortcuts.
- The article emphasizes Raycast’s advantages in improving efficiency and focus, and sees it as having a valuable first-mover advantage in the AI PC/Mac space.
Apple and Microsoft didn’t do it, but this company did. This may be what an AI PC or AI Mac should look like at this stage.
Let me give the simplest example: help me open three tabs, with YouTube, X, and Medium respectively.
Opening three specified web pages in Chrome is done very easily.
Here’s another one: create a new task under Video Production called “finish editing,” with a deadline of Wednesday at 8 p.m.
You can see that it first goes into Todoist to get my project list, then creates the task under the Video Production project and sets the deadline.
One last one: create a folder named 123 on the desktop.
See? It’s handled very easily.
The software I just demonstrated is called Raycast. It’s a productivity tool on Mac. After using it for a while, I found that it’s not just a tool, but a hub—a central place to orchestrate all software.
For example, if I want to search local documents, I choose Search Files and then enter keywords. It will smoothly list the relevant documents.
If I want to search with Google, I choose Search Google. After hitting Enter, I just enter keywords. It will automatically open a new webpage.
If I want to search with Perplexity, I choose Ask Perplexity. It will open a dialog box. Besides entering a question, I can also choose the scope of the search, just like on the official site.
If I want to translate something, I choose Translate. If I just want to understand the general meaning, this is basically enough.
If I want to kill a process, I choose Kill Progress. It will list all currently running processes. You can sort by CPU usage or by memory usage.
If I want to set up my desktop layout, I choose Window Layout. You can arrange several apps on the screen however you want.
If I want to check my schedule, I choose My Schedule, and it will list everything on the calendar.
If I want to favorite the song I’m listening to right now, I choose Favorite Track, and it will add a star in Apple Music.
Some of these features are implemented through Raycast’s built-in core functions, such as basic search, system actions, and other high-frequency scenarios; others are implemented through plugins, with the goal of meeting long-tail needs.
Earlier this year, Raycast launched AI Extentions. Although it’s still only in beta, these dozens of AI plugins already deliver three functions:
First, natural language interaction.
Everyone saw the example at the beginning of the video. Now, you just need to @ a certain AI plugin and tell it what you want, and it will help you operate the corresponding software.
A typical example is the terminal. I only need to @shell and then enter a command, and it will help me call the terminal to execute it and bring the result back for display.
For example, if I enter the command ollama list, it will list the models I’ve already downloaded. And this AI plugin even knows to present the results in a table.
Second, cross-app orchestration.
For example: help me book a video meeting for tomorrow at 12 p.m., topic: new topic discussion.
The AI plugin will call two apps: one is Zoom, because it’s a video meeting, so it needs to help me create a meeting link; the other is Calendar, because it needs to book that meeting on my calendar.
This kind of cross-app orchestration doesn’t require you to arrange things one by one; it can be done through Presets. You can create your own Preset, or download other people’s from the official site.
For example, the one I just demonstrated is the ready-made Calendar Assistant. Its structure is very simple: first, Instructions, meaning what you want it to do; second, which AI participants are needed, such as Calendar and Zoom, and which model to use.
There are already dozens of Presets on the official site. If you’re interested, you can take a look—I won’t demonstrate them in detail.
Third, AI chat.
This feature was first launched a year ago. It’s just that at the time, only a few models were supported—GPT-3.5 and GPT-4. Later, Claude, Mistral, and other well-known models were gradually added.
By today, Raycast’s AI chat covers the mainstream models on the market. The two I personally use most are Gemini 2.0 Flash and Sonar Reasoning Pro. There’s reasoning and web search, which feels great. And I also set a keyboard shortcut for it, which makes it even more convenient to use.
Honestly, since I installed Raycast, I’ve opened ChatWise less often. The core features overlap, but Raycast feels lighter and is especially suitable for scenarios where you just want to chat a bit in daily use.
Raycast’s AI plugin features require payment to unlock. The price is very cheap: $8 a month. If you pay more, you can use more advanced models, such as Claude 3.7 Sonnet.
Right now I only pay the $8, and I feel this is the most worthwhile AI subscription I’ve bought this year. With it, plus the AI tools and productivity tools I recommended in the previous previous issue, using the whole set of keyboard shortcuts really makes efficiency soar.
And the more I use it, the more I feel that having an AI hub that seamlessly integrates all software, then completes all interactions in one interface, is exactly the functionality and experience I want from an AI PC or AI Mac.
Because of seamless integration, you can complete tasks without opening apps. Don’t underestimate this small change. It helps tremendously with focus and productivity.
Because of seamless integration, the value of natural language interaction becomes clear—you no longer need to learn or think about how a certain app works; you just state the requirement.
Big companies like Apple and Microsoft have a lot of things to consider, not just making products. So they gave Raycast time to grow. This is a very valuable window of opportunity. Even if the big players catch up later, as long as Raycast can maintain flexibility and openness, it will still have room to survive. That’s why I decided to subscribe long-term and support them.
OK, that’s all for this episode. If you want to learn about AI, come to our newtype community. See you next time!