Stealth AI for video conferencing: what's technically real on Zoom, Meet & Teams
By The Assistly team ·
"Stealth AI" gets marketed hard and explained badly. Some of what's claimed is technically real and verifiable; some is wishful. If you're going to rely on an assistant being invisible during a video call, you should know exactly which is which.
What video conferencing platforms can actually see
Start with the platforms themselves, because this is where most people's mental model is wrong.
Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams cannot see what's running on your computer. A video call transmits three things: your camera, your microphone, and — only when you share — your screen or a window. There is no API that lets a meeting platform inspect your running apps, detect an overlay, or know that software is drawing on your physical display. On an ordinary call with no screen share, an on-screen assistant is invisible to the other side by construction.
The two real exposure points are:
- Screen sharing and recording. Anything in the capture frame is seen by everyone. This is where stealth is won or lost.
- Proctoring and monitoring software — a separate program you're asked to install, which can scan processes and capture your screen. Different threat model, covered below.
The mechanism that makes stealth real
Both Windows and macOS let a window ask the operating system to exclude itself from capture buffers. The window renders on your physical screen, but when Zoom, Meet, Teams, or a recorder requests the screen's pixels, the OS composites the frame without that window. This is a built-in OS capability — the same class of protection used for DRM-protected video — not a hack.
The honest caveats:
- It's engineering-dependent. Newer macOS capture paths (ScreenCaptureKit on macOS 15+) can behave differently from the older exclusion flags, and whole-screen vs single-window sharing behave differently. A tool has to be built and maintained against current capture APIs. The deep dive is in how undetectable AI overlays work.
- Browser tools can't use it. A Chrome extension or web app lives inside a browser tab — if you share that screen or tab, it's in the frame. This is why browser-based assistants keep getting caught on screen shares.
- Process names still show. Monitoring software that scans running processes will see an app's name even when its window is uncapturable. Real stealth tooling lets you rename the app and change its icon.
- No software fixes behavior. Long silences, reading eyes, and answers that outclass your follow-ups are how people actually get noticed — can interviewers detect AI has the details.
What this looks like done properly
Assistly is a native always-on-top overlay for macOS (Apple silicon, macOS 13+) and Windows 10/11 built around exactly this mechanism:
- OS-level capture exclusion on every plan — the overlay stays out of screen shares and recordings on Zoom, Meet, and Teams, with no separate "stealth" upcharge.
- It never joins the call, so there's no bot in the roster and no participant notification — it listens to the call's audio on your own device (which is also why it works with headphones on).
- Renamable app + custom icon to stay anonymous in a process list.
- Streaming, speaker-aware guidance during the call, and organized notes and action items after it.
Free is 5 sessions a month (45 minutes each, full feature set, no card); Pro is $14.99/month, unlimited.
Claims to be skeptical of
- "100% undetectable, guaranteed" with no mention of which capture paths — the macOS 15 caveat applies to everyone; vendors who don't mention it either don't know or aren't saying.
- Stealth as a premium tier. If invisibility is the product's core promise, gating it to a ~$150/month plan (as Cluely reportedly does) tells you something.
- Browser extensions claiming screen-share invisibility — architecturally they can't deliver it.
Stealth ≠ carte blanche
Stealth describes pixels, not permission. Use an assistant within the rules of the call you're on, respect recording-consent laws where participants are, and remember the point: being prepared and present without a panel cluttering the frame — not misrepresenting yourself.
Try Assistly free on your next call, or see the ranked field in the most undetectable AI assistants.