Using an AI Interview Assistant on Zoom

Worried that adding an AI assistant to a Zoom interview means inviting a strange bot into the meeting? It doesn't. This section explains exactly what runs where so you know what the interviewer's Zoom window sees.

SubcueAI is a native desktop app for macOS and Windows. You launch it before joining your Zoom call and then join Zoom normally from the official Zoom client. There is no Zoom Marketplace app, no browser extension, and no separate participant that dials into the meeting. From Zoom's participant list, it is just you on the call.

Once Zoom is running, SubcueAI listens to two local audio streams on your machine: your microphone (you speaking) and the system audio output (the interviewer speaking through your speakers or headphones). This is the dual audio capture approach — a deeper explanation lives on the how it works topic page.

On your screen, SubcueAI draws a small floating overlay that shows the live transcript and answer suggestions. The overlay sits above Zoom in your local window manager — it is not part of the Zoom video feed and is not pushed through Zoom's camera or screen-share pipeline.

The interviewer sees your camera feed and hears your microphone, exactly as in any normal Zoom call. They do not see the overlay, the transcript, or any indication that SubcueAI is running on your machine.

For a step-by-step first-run walkthrough, see the tutorial page.

There are situations where SubcueAI on Zoom is not appropriate or simply will not help, and it is worth being clear about them:

• Screen sharing. If you share your full screen in Zoom, anything visible on that screen — including the SubcueAI overlay — is shared. Move or close the overlay before sharing, or share a single application window (e.g. only your IDE) instead of the whole desktop.
• Recorded interviews. If Zoom records the call and your screen is being captured in any way, the overlay can appear in the recording.
• Proctored or company-managed devices. On a locked-down corporate laptop you may not be able to install third-party desktop software at all, and proctoring agents can flag or block additional running processes.

Privacy details and what data leaves your machine are covered on the security page.

A backend engineer interviewing for an L5 role at a public cloud vendor might run Zoom on the left half of the screen, an IDE on the right half, and place the SubcueAI overlay in a thin column over the IDE. When the interviewer asks a system-design question, the overlay surfaces a structured outline; when it is time to code and share, the candidate shares only the IDE window — not the full desktop — so the overlay stays private.

Aaron Cao, founder of SubcueAI, designed the overlay to be draggable and resizable for exactly this reason: real interviews involve constant window juggling, and a fixed sidebar would break the moment you need to share a single window. Pricing for different interview volumes lives on the pricing page.