Several weeks ago I was sitting in a video meeting pretending to listen while my brain quietly wandered off. It happens more often than I’d like to admit. You blink and suddenly you have no idea what anyone is talking about. Five years ago this would have just been a mildly embarrassing moment, but now there are apps built specifically to catch you when your attention drifts off.

When the Robot Joins the Meeting

Cluely is the AI making headlines right now. It’s an AI meeting assistant that listens to your calls, analyzes the conversation in real time, and feeds you prompts. Respond like this, ask this follow-up, or share this example. The app basically tries to become a superhuman version of yourself in real time while you’re on a call.

When The Atlantic tested it, the writer described the weirdness of repeating a line that you know came from a robot. You say it and you sound polished, but in a way that feels off. Like a person wearing a Halloween mask of themselves.

The Upside and the Unsettling Stuff

I’ll be honest, part of me loves the idea. I’ve had calls where a little nudge could have helped me. I’ve had job interviews where a perfectly timed reminder could have changed everything, but another part of me gets why some people find it alarming. If we outsource the hard parts of a conversation, do we slowly lose the part that makes human interaction interesting?

A friend of mine said it best, “If my personality becomes more robotic, just put me in airplane mode.” Dramatic, but fair.

The optimists have a counterpoint for this. Tools like this can help people who get anxious in meetings or struggle with small talk or transitions. They can level the playing field for people who didn’t grow up with strong communication skills. That’s pretty valid in my opinion. A small advantage in one meeting can rewrite the trajectory of an entire job search or freelance pitch.

There’s also the privacy concern too. For Cluely to work, it has to listen to everything. Not just your voice, but everyone’s. Every joke and every misstep. It turns your meeting into data. Some people shrug that off, but others see a Black Mirror episode waiting to happen. 

What This Means for Real Connection

The bigger, stranger question is what this means for connection. Real conversation isn’t always clean or polished. Sometimes the best stories come out when someone trips into an unplanned moment. A prompt can guide you toward “better” answers, but “better” is subjective. 

I keep thinking about dinner parties and how the best ones are always candid and chaotic. People talking over each other, someone telling a long story that leads into another. This is how friendships form and trust builds. No prompt could replicate that, and maybe that’s the whole point.

If this is where we’re headed, then the skill of the future might be knowing when to ignore the extra noise. It’s not about banning the tool, but refusing to let it replace the part of you that makes you human.

There will be people who fully rely on it, and their conversations will sound like a GPT conversation in real life. And then there will be people who use it as a backup plan and still lead with curiosity, humor, and actual human inspiration.

I know which group I want to be in.

But I’m also not above admitting that if Cluely wants to remind me to stop rambling on a Thursday morning client call, I won’t fight it.

Maybe the future is somewhat a balance of both. Real conversation happening on top of a quiet robot whispering in the background, and maybe the challenge is figuring out how to use the help without losing our authenticity.

If WALL-E taught us one thing, it’s that humans don’t thrive when everything is automated. Maybe AI can help us stay organized and focused, but it shouldn’t take over the moments that make us, us.