His new app, Cluely, helps users by analyzing what’s on their screens, hearing audio, and suggesting answers to questions, all without detection from the other side. In a LinkedIn post, Lee said Cluely is a “cheating tool for literally everything.”<\/p>\n
Lee said on Monday that San Francisco-based Cluely has raised $5.3 million, backed by Abstract Ventures and Susa Ventures.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Business Insider on Wednesday night, Lee said that Cluely has gained about 70,000 users since its launch on Sunday.<\/p>\n
“It is pretty crazy. And this is just a lot more than we expected,” he said.<\/p>\n
Lee said the concept of “cheating” needs to be rethought in the AI era.<\/p>\n
“Using AI is just inevitable and something that we should just all embrace,” he said.<\/p>\n
I put Cluely to the test, and I saw promise \u2014 but also huge privacy concerns.<\/p>\n
First impressions<\/p>\n
I tested Cluely on Tuesday morning and paid $20 for the Pro version \u2014 a monthly subscription \u2014 since the free tier doesn’t offer much.<\/p>\n
The interface is slick and minimal: a thin bar on the top of my screen. With one keyboard shortcut, Cluely scans my screen, then generates answers. I could also speak to it through my mic.<\/p>\n
It only works with what’s already on my screen \u2014 it doesn’t crawl the internet like ChatGPT.<\/p>\n
It also reads everything. I kept my Signal group chats<\/a> closed.<\/p>\n That’s what makes it powerful \u2014 and also kind of terrifying.<\/p>\n Lee told BI that Cluely doesn’t save any data, and if it does, it’s “heavily censored.”<\/p>\n “If there’s something that you don’t want to be seen, then you shouldn’t use the tool, and it shouldn’t be up while you’re on sensitive information,” Lee said.<\/p>\n I deleted it right after writing this story.<\/p>\n Related stories<\/p>\n Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know<\/p>\n Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know<\/p>\n Flopping my mock interview<\/p>\n Cluely’s killer pitch is real-time assistance.<\/p>\n I let it scan my LinkedIn profile and kept it open while my editor put me through a mock interview with the same questions I answered to land this job.<\/p>\n First up: What is my media consumption like? Could I share what I like to read or watch? What keeps me interested and busy?<\/p>\n The app starts “thinking.” Five seconds later, it gave me a summary of the question, not an answer.<\/p>\n My editor tried again, more succinctly: “What media outlets do you read?”<\/p>\n This time, Cluely came through:<\/p>\n “I enjoy staying up to date with a mix of international and local news \u2014 typically from outlets like the New York Times, BBC, and CNA. I love longform journalism from The Atlantic and Wired, especially on tech and social issues. I also listen to ‘The Daily’ and ‘Planet Money’ during my commute.”<\/p>\n Not bad, though I don’t listen to podcasts on my way to work.<\/p>\n My editor asked me to talk about a difficult story I’ve worked on. 10 seconds of awkward silence later, Cluely offered: “One difficult story I worked on was about the impact of layoffs in the tech industry.”<\/p>\n I never wrote that story.<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/placeholder.png\")
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