harness vs cluely
Cluely is a desktop overlay built for one moment: the live call. It listens to call audio, watches your screen, and feeds you answers, talking points, and objection handling in real time during interviews, sales calls, and meetings. Its best-known feature is an overlay designed to stay invisible to screen-share detection, which is what the top tier charges for.
Harness is a general screen-aware assistant rather than a call coach: share a tab, ask about what's there, leave a watch running, search what your screen showed earlier. And the reading happens on your device, not on a server watching your call.
side by side
| harness | cluely | |
|---|---|---|
| runs on | any chromium browser (chrome, brave, arc, edge), no install | desktop app (mac, windows) |
| screen reading happens | on your device; a question sends only a focused slice of the relevant region | in the cloud; live audio and screen stream to hosted models during calls |
| what it sees | the tab, window, or screen you explicitly share | your active screen and call audio while it runs |
| watching over time | yes: watches and flags the moment it happens, keeps working after you close the window | real-time prompts during a call; not a leave-it-running monitor |
| memory of your screen | on-device searchable visual memory plus learned preferences, wipeable | call transcripts and history |
| acting on it | yes: drafts, documents, spreadsheets, decks, images | suggests answers and objections live; you do the talking |
| pricing | free tier; pay-as-you-go credit; resident $7.99/mo | limited free tier; pro ~$20/mo; the undetectable overlay tier runs ~$150/mo |
pick cluely if
- you want live coaching during interviews or sales calls, with answers surfaced as the other person talks
- call transcription and meeting-moment prompts are the whole job
pick harness if
- you want a screen assistant for everything else: reading, watching, remembering, and producing work from what's on screen
- you'd rather your screen and audio didn't stream to a server as you work
- you want a free tier that's actually usable, in the browser, with no install
New to the category? Start with what is screen-aware AI? or see the full 2026 roundup. Harness is free to try, in the browser, no install: tryharness.ai.