OpenAI is now making it easier to switch from your browser to the desktop, taking up Sky, a native AI interface for macOS, in an effort to make ChatGPT feel like part of your Mac instead of yet another website.
The deal is a sign of aggressive expansion into Apple’s territory, as an addition to the existing partnership that already pipes ChatGPT into the Apple Intelligence features.
- Why a native Mac assistant matters for everyday users
- What Sky adds on the desktop across common Mac apps
- The hurdle: privacy and security for agentic assistants
- The market stakes for OpenAI and Apple in macOS
- How this fits with Apple Intelligence and user choice
- What to watch next as Sky and ChatGPT come to Mac
Sky’s pitch is simple and powerful: an AI that hovers above your desktop, knows what you’re doing and can take actions across apps with your consent. Consider calendar entries composed from texts, research spun up next to documents, and messages written with the knowledge of what’s on your screen — all without residing in a browser tab.
Why a native Mac assistant matters for everyday users
When you embed AI at the OS level, you get access to capabilities that web-first assistants are challenged to meet. A native client can directly invoke global shortcuts, access local files and system services, and respond more quickly by utilizing on-device compute. On Apple Silicon, that would likely involve leaning on the Neural Engine for portions of inference to improve responsiveness and reduce battery consumption where possible.
It also pits OpenAI directly against OS-integrated assistants. Microsoft has also pushed Copilot further into Windows, while Apple is spreading Apple Intelligence across its ecosystem. Through having a polished macOS client, OpenAI makes ChatGPT accessible for Mac users whether or not it agrees with Apple’s own roadmap.
What Sky adds on the desktop across common Mac apps
Sky has been shown to be an overlay that is capable of seeing context, parsing it, and doing things. For the most part, that means asking permission to view your screen, read notifications and interact with apps you authorize. Some example workflows include turning a message thread into a calendar invitation, summarizing a PDF already open in Preview, or planning an evening out by drawing from Maps, Safari and Messages.
Under the hood, it almost certainly uses macOS accessibility and automation APIs, and vision and language models to transform intent into action. The result is agentic behavior that feels less like prodding a chatbot into action and more like issuing commands to a digital aide.
The hurdle: privacy and security for agentic assistants
Agentic AI requires trust. Screen watching, clipboard access, calendar manipulation and file permissions are powerful — and touchy. Apple’s TCC permission framework requires explicit user consent on macOS, and in theory, a native client can do more processing locally to avoid data leaving the device. But transparency will also be key: transparent cues when the screen is being analyzed, granular toggles and auditable logs of what actions were taken.
Security researchers have already identified risks in companion products when assistants capture or store too much context. The lesson is simply this: reduce retention, make access ephemeral and give users hard off switches. If OpenAI is able to place Sky in places with strong enterprise controls and local-first defaults, it may soothe twitchy IT teams and privacy advocates.
The market stakes for OpenAI and Apple in macOS
The Mac audience is strategic. Creative professionals, developers and knowledge workers, the demographic most likely to spend money on AI tools, are all groups that over-index on macOS. IDC analysts predict it will take only a few years until “AI PCs” are the majority of new shipments, and Apple has been gradually growing the installed base of Apple Silicon Macs. Possessing the daily work surface on these machines could mean more direct ChatGPT engagement and subscription revenue.
There’s also an ecosystem play. If Sky becomes something of a hub, able to invoke actions inside third-party apps — schedule in Fantastical, draft in Ulysses, file in Notion, commit in Xcode — it turns ChatGPT into an operating layer. That’s a shot across the bow for browser-dependent extensions that may also nudge competitors to increase their own native integrations.
How this fits with Apple Intelligence and user choice
Apple’s plan mixes local models with some optional cloud help, and ChatGPT is an option for some types of personal tasks if users opt in; Sky provides OpenAI with a separate approach that could lead to richer experiences spanning multiple apps that Apple itself may not prioritize. For users, the best result would be choice: Apple’s built-in features for simple private tasks; a more powerful OpenAI agent when more complex, multi-step work is required.
What to watch next as Sky and ChatGPT come to Mac
Key questions remain. Is Sky going to be included with ChatGPT Plus, or will it have its own separate cost? How much runs on-device versus in the cloud? Which enterprise protections — data residency, admin policies — will ship at launch? And will developers be given access to an action API, so that they can have a safe way for the assistant to “drive” their app?
If OpenAI delivers, the Mac could become the first mainstream platform where regular people get to use an AI that doesn’t just answer questions — it does work for them, inside the tools they’re already using every day.
