Google Created a Local AI Note-Taker for Mac

My Medium friends can read this over on Medium.

Google announced a note-taking app for the Mac on October 6. It's called Google AI Edge Foresight, and it transcribes your meetings on your Mac instead of in the cloud.

Google calls it an experiment. For now, it's Mac only.

What it does

Foresight listens in the background while you're in a meeting. Google Meet, Zoom, or in person. It picks up the microphone and the system audio and shows a live transcript.

Your notes go on the other side of the window. You type short bullet points, and Foresight turns them into fuller notes based on what was said.

You can also give it files: PDFs, Google Docs, Microsoft Office files, plain text, Markdown, and web bookmarks. Then you ask it questions about all of that. There's also something called Live Assistance, which is supposed to answer questions during the meeting on its own. Not much detail on that one yet.

Local

The point is where it runs. Google says the AI runs 100 percent on your device, and that your files, recordings, and transcripts never leave your computer. It works offline, too.

Under the hood are Gemma 4 and EmbeddingGemma 2, a model with 740 million parameters.

Many AI note-takers work the other way. The audio goes to a server, and the summary comes back.

Foresight is built for Apple Silicon. Intel Macs aren't supported. And it's a direct download from Google's site, not from the App Store.

Not dictation

As far as I can tell, Foresight is for meetings and notes, not for dictating into other apps.

For that you want something like Wispr Flow*, which types wherever your cursor is. Google has an on-device dictation app of its own, too, called AI Edge Eloquent.

Downsides

Google says there are no cloud subscription costs. A price for the app itself isn't mentioned. For now, it's free.

Then the platform. Mac only, and Apple Silicon only. No word yet on Gmail sync or a Windows version.

Google calls it an experimental app. Experiments can disappear. Google ditches many things.

The privacy claims are Google's own so far. Google Drive is listed as a source, too, and how that fits with "nothing leaves your computer" isn't clear to me. Google also doesn't say which languages Foresight supports. But since it's based on the Gemma model family, languages that Gemma supports will most likely work there.

And a transcript is still a recording of other people. You need / should get their OK.

The Bottom Line

Local AI on a Mac, from Google. Nothing leaves the machine, at least that's the promise.

Would you let it listen to your meetings?

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