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How to Use AI on Mac: Completing Apple Intelligence with Pismo
Apple Intelligence is great for native apps, but your professional workflow extends far beyond Mail and Notes. Discover how Pismo acts as the essential system-wide AI writing assistant, filling the integration gaps by bringing customizable, hotkey-triggered AI to Slack, Notion, VS Code, and every other app on your Mac.
The launch of Apple Intelligence (AI) has fundamentally changed how we think about Mac productivity AI tools. With native Writing Tools now available system-wide for proofreading, rewriting, and summarizing, the Mac experience is faster and more intuitive than ever before.
But for the professional who lives in a diverse app ecosystem—juggling Slack for communication, Notion for documentation, and VS Code for development—a crucial gap emerges. Apple Intelligence, while revolutionary, can be limited to basic text selection features in many of the third-party Mac apps you rely on every day.
This is where Pismo steps in.
Pismo is designed to be the definitive Apple Intelligence complement. It’s the system-wide AI writing assistant that guarantees the power of advanced, generative AI is truly available everywhere—complete with personalized automation and deep customization. Pismo isn’t here to replace Apple Intelligence; it’s here to complete your workflow, turning good native features into a professional-grade, hyper-efficient machine.
Ready to see how Pismo brings powerful, customizable AI to every corner of your desktop?
But for the professional who lives in a diverse app ecosystem—juggling Slack for communication, Notion for documentation, and VS Code for development—a crucial gap emerges. Apple Intelligence, while revolutionary, can be limited to basic text selection features in many of the third-party Mac apps you rely on every day.
This is where Pismo steps in.
Pismo is designed to be the definitive Apple Intelligence complement. It’s the system-wide AI writing assistant that guarantees the power of advanced, generative AI is truly available everywhere—complete with personalized automation and deep customization. Pismo isn’t here to replace Apple Intelligence; it’s here to complete your workflow, turning good native features into a professional-grade, hyper-efficient machine.
Ready to see how Pismo brings powerful, customizable AI to every corner of your desktop?
The Critical Advantage - Going Beyond Apple’s Ecosystem
Apple Intelligence promises system-wide writing tools, which is a huge win. But professionals often discover that "system-wide" often translates to "works best in Apple's native apps."
The Integration Gap: Where Apple’s Reach Ends
While Apple has paved the way for integration, many cross-platform or Electron-based applications (like Obsidian, Notion, or certain team chat apps) do not fully support the native AI context menus, or they offer a limited experience. When you're working in a non-standard text editor, the flow breaks, and you're back to the old, slow routine: context-switching.
This context-switching is the death of productivity.
This context-switching is the death of productivity.
Pismo: True System-Wide AI Writing Assistant
Pismo solves this problem by offering a fundamentally different, native desktop solution. As a lightweight, dedicated application for macOS, Pismo operates as an overlay, ensuring its functionality is truly app-agnostic.
The core benefit is simple: Pismo works on selected text in any application.
Whether you are drafting a quick message in Slack, updating a long technical document in a niche CRM, or responding to a client email in your web browser, Pismo is just a hotkey away. It is the professional-grade system-wide AI writing assistant that delivers generative power directly to the cursor, making the "copy-paste-switch" routine obsolete and completing your Mac productivity AI tools suite.
The core benefit is simple: Pismo works on selected text in any application.
Whether you are drafting a quick message in Slack, updating a long technical document in a niche CRM, or responding to a client email in your web browser, Pismo is just a hotkey away. It is the professional-grade system-wide AI writing assistant that delivers generative power directly to the cursor, making the "copy-paste-switch" routine obsolete and completing your Mac productivity AI tools suite.
The Power of Customization: Where Pismo Takes the Lead
While Apple Intelligence offers pre-set tones (friendly, professional, concise), true workflow mastery requires deep, personalized customization. This is the hallmark of the Pismo experience.
Custom AI Prompts: Your Mac’s New Automation Library
Apple's native tools offer fixed options. Pismo offers the ability to create, save, and reuse complex, personalized instructions as custom AI prompts Mac users can trigger instantly.
This moves you from asking for a simple rewrite to performing true workflow automation with a single click:
This moves you from asking for a simple rewrite to performing true workflow automation with a single click:
Pismo Custom Prompt Ideas
- For Sales Managers:“Rewrite this email thread into a concise follow-up email, highlighting the three key benefits and ending with a clear call-to-action for a meeting.”
- For Developers:“Explain the selected 50 lines of code in plain English, generating a three-point bulleted list of its function and potential security risks.”
- For SEO/Content Specialists:“From this paragraph of text, generate 5 unique, SEO-rich meta descriptions under 160 characters.
AI Writing Hotkeys: Maximizing Speed and Focus
The combination of custom prompts with AI writing hotkeys is Pismo's secret weapon for speed. You map your complex, custom prompt (like the Sales example above) to a simple key combination (e.g., CMD+Shift+E).
This eliminates the need to:
This eliminates the need to:
- Open a new window.
- Type the lengthy custom instruction.
- Click submit.
Versatility and Security: Beyond Simple Text Fixes
Beyond writing assistance, Pismo’s versatility and commitment to control make it the more robust tool for the modern professional.
Instant Translation and Tone Consistency
Pismo is also a powerful Mac translation assistant. Its system-wide nature means you can instantly translate selected foreign text within a challenging document, a messaging app, or an email client, ensuring seamless global communication without tab-switching. Furthermore, Pismo provides fine-tuned control over tone and style, which is crucial for maintaining consistent brand voice across all communications.
Privacy Control: Pismo's Zero-Data Approach
While Apple Intelligence emphasizes privacy, Pismo offers a vital layer of control, especially for power users and teams:
- Zero Data StoragePismo does not store or process the texts you work with, ensuring your sensitive data remains yours.
- BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) OptionFor advanced users and enterprises, Pismo allows you to connect your own API key (e.g., from OpenRouter), giving you total visibility and control over the AI backend being used—a level of transparency and management Apple's native features cannot offer.
The Essential Duo for the Modern Mac User
Apple Intelligence has set the stage for a new era of AI on the Mac. It has introduced millions of users to the power of generative writing.
But the professional workflow—the one that lives across Slack, Notion, VS Code, and dozens of other third-party applications—demands more. It requires a system-wide AI writing assistant that is customizable, fast, and completely integrated.
Pismo isn't just an alternative; it is the Apple Intelligence complement that unlocks your maximum workflow speed. By eliminating context-switching, mastering AI writing hotkeys, and giving you total control over custom AI prompts Mac users can build, Pismo ensures that the power of AI follows you wherever your work takes you.
But the professional workflow—the one that lives across Slack, Notion, VS Code, and dozens of other third-party applications—demands more. It requires a system-wide AI writing assistant that is customizable, fast, and completely integrated.
Pismo isn't just an alternative; it is the Apple Intelligence complement that unlocks your maximum workflow speed. By eliminating context-switching, mastering AI writing hotkeys, and giving you total control over custom AI prompts Mac users can build, Pismo ensures that the power of AI follows you wherever your work takes you.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, but with limitations. Apple Intelligence features (like Proofread and Rewrite) are primarily designed for native Apple apps (Mail, Notes, Pages). While they can technically appear in some third-party apps via the "Edit" menu, the integration is often clunky, requires multiple clicks, or fails to appear in non-native fields (like Electron-based apps). Pismo solves this by working as a system-wide overlay, allowing you to use AI writing and custom prompts on selected text in any application, including Chrome, VS Code, Slack, and Discord, without breaking your workflow.
You cannot create custom text prompts natively with Apple Intelligence. Apple's Writing Tools offer only fixed pre-sets (Friendly, Professional, Concise, Summarize). To use custom prompts (e.g., "Rewrite this email to be persuasive and under 50 words"), you need a third-party tool like Pismo. Pismo allows you to save unlimited custom prompts and trigger them with keyboard shortcuts (hotkeys), giving you full control over the AI's output.
It depends on your needs. If you primarily need basic spelling and grammar checking in a web browser, Grammarly is a solid choice. However, Pismo is often preferred by power users because it is a native desktop app that works system-wide (not just in browsers), offers generative AI (rewriting, expanding, translating) rather than just correction, and supports custom hotkeys. Pismo also offers a "Bring Your Own Key" (BYOK) model for users who want total privacy control.
Apple Intelligence processes data on-device or via its "Private Cloud Compute" for complex tasks. Pismo does not store, train on, or save the text you process. For enterprise users or those handling sensitive data, Pismo’s BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) feature allows you to use your own API keys (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic), ensuring you have full ownership and visibility of your data traffic.
Yes, with Pismo. While macOS has a native "Translate" feature, it often requires a pop-up window or context menu navigation. Pismo allows you to select text in any app (a PDF, a code comment, or a chat message) and instantly translate it in place using a hotkey, maintaining the context and flow of your work without switching windows.
Yes. This is a major advantage of Pismo. Apple Intelligence features are strictly limited to newer Macs with Apple Silicon (M1 chips and later). Pismo, however, is designed to bring powerful AI capabilities to a much broader range of macOS devices, including many Intel-based Macs that are excluded from Apple's native AI rollout. This ensures you don't need to buy a new computer just to get system-wide AI productivity.
Absolutely. While Apple’s native Writing Tools are designed primarily for prose (emails, documents), Pismo is invaluable for developers. You can create custom prompts specifically for code, such as "Explain this function," "Find the bug in this selection," or "Generate a docstring for this method." Because Pismo works on any selected text, you can use it directly inside your IDE (VS Code, Xcode, IntelliJ) without copying code back and forth to a web browser.
Pismo can often replace a standalone subscription. Many users pay $20/month for ChatGPT Plus simply to have access to a better writer or summarizer. Pismo brings that generative power directly into your workflow. Furthermore, with Pismo’s BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) feature, you can pay only for the exact amount of AI you use via API, which can be significantly cheaper than a flat monthly subscription for users with light-to-moderate needs.
Apple's "Rewrite" is a correction tool; Pismo is a creation tool. Apple Intelligence offers simple preset styles (Friendly, Professional, Concise) to polish what you have already written. Pismo, however, uses Generative AI to build content from scratch or perform complex reasoning. For example, you can select a few bullet points and ask Pismo to "Draft a full 3-paragraph announcement based on these notes," or select a messy rough draft and command "Reformat this into a clean table." Pismo handles structure, logic, and generation, not just polishing.
