Can Cluely be detected by Zoom?

The question is really about Zoom's scope, and that scope is narrow. The Zoom client sends three things to the meeting: your microphone, your camera, and the content you choose to share. It does not inspect or report the other programs running on your machine. Cluely, like SubcueAI's desktop app and every other overlay-style assistant, is a separate application window on your desktop, so Zoom has no view of it unless you put it into one of those three streams.

What Zoom does show to the host is worth knowing precisely.

• The participant list. Every person or bot that joins the meeting appears here with a name. An overlay that runs locally is not a participant; a note-taking bot is.
• Shared content. A single-window share sends that window's pixels only. A whole-screen share sends the entire display, overlay windows included.
• In-meeting signals. Chat messages, reactions, and raised hands are visible to everyone.

The old attention-tracking feature that flagged when Zoom was not the active window was removed by Zoom years ago; hosts do not get a focus indicator today. The detectability topic covers the equivalent facts for Google Meet and Microsoft Teams.

It is fair to worry that an overlay marketed as undetectable might still show up, so here is the exact list of ways it does, and each is about what leaves your computer rather than about Zoom detecting anything.

• Whole-screen sharing. If the interviewer asks you to share and you pick the entire screen, the overlay is on the feed and in any recording. Sharing a single window avoids this for any overlay that stays outside that window.
• Screen recording on your side. Employer-installed recording software, or a recorded assessment session, captures your display, overlay included.
• Proctoring add-ons. Proctored interviews and assessments install software that can enumerate running processes, watch the webcam, and log window switches. Cluely, SubcueAI, or any assistant is a process on that list.
• Company-managed devices. A laptop administered by the employer can report installed and running software regardless of the meeting client.
• Behavior. Reading answers off a screen is visible to a human: eye movement away from the camera, pauses before every answer, and answers that collapse on the first follow-up. Interviewers detect that without any software.

A backend engineer interviewing for a role at a logistics company was asked to share her screen to walk through code; she had rehearsed the single-window share in a mock session, shared only the editor, and the call proceeded normally. The candidate who shares the desktop out of habit is the one who gets caught, whichever tool is running.

Zoom itself has no proctoring mode. When an employer says an interview or assessment is proctored, a separate product is involved: either a proctoring service that runs alongside the call, or an assessment platform with its own proctoring features such as webcam monitoring, tab-switch logging, and process enumeration. Those tools are designed to see running software, and an overlay is exactly what they look for.

The invitation usually tells you: a link to a proctoring vendor, a request to install something before the session, or instructions to close all other applications. If any of those appear, treat the session as outside the scope of any assistant, Cluely or otherwise. The honest position, which SubcueAI states on its own pages, is that proctored sessions, recorded sessions, and managed devices are not a place to run an overlay, and no vendor can change that with software.

Both are overlays rather than meeting bots, so neither appears in the Zoom participant list, and both become visible in the same four situations above. The differences are in design and in what is claimed. SubcueAI's native macOS and Windows desktop app captures system audio and your microphone, so it hears the interviewer inside the Zoom app and shows suggestions in a floating local overlay; when Zoom runs in a Chrome or Edge browser tab, its browser extension Side Panel captures the meeting tab's audio only, hears the interviewer, and never transcribes you. Neither surface joins the call or injects anything into the Zoom page. Suggestions draw on your uploaded resume and saved prepared answers, and the answer length is adjustable, which is what keeps prompts short enough not to be read aloud.

On claims, Aaron Cao, founder of SubcueAI, states the limits on the product pages rather than promising invisibility; a tool sold as undetectable everywhere is making a claim its design cannot support. The sourced side-by-side is on the Cluely alternative page; the setup and screen-share rehearsal steps are on the tutorial page.