What are AI interview overlays?

By Aaron Cao · Updated 2026-07-14

An AI interview overlay is a small window that stays on top of your screen and shows real-time transcription and answer suggestions during an interview. SubcueAI renders it locally as a semi-transparent panel, separate from the meeting, so it does not join the call.

What an AI interview overlay is

If you have seen a tool promise on-screen answer hints during a live interview and wondered what is actually drawn on the screen, this section defines it. An AI interview overlay is a window that floats above your other applications and updates in real time while you talk.

The overlay typically shows two things: a running transcript of what the interviewer just said, and short suggested points you can glance at. It is a display surface, not a participant. A meeting bot joins the call as an attendee and appears in the roster; an overlay does neither, because it is simply a local window on your machine.

How the overlay stays on top without joining the call

SubcueAI draws the overlay as a native desktop window on macOS or Windows, marked to stay above other windows. Because it is rendered by the operating system on your own display, the video meeting software has no handle to it; Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams see a normal participant, not an extra window.

The panel is usually semi-transparent so you can keep light contact with the interviewer's video behind it. The transcription and suggestions are produced from audio your device captures locally, then shown in the overlay. For a fuller walk through of the capture and suggestion pipeline, the how it works topic hub goes deeper.

The overlay and screen sharing: the honest limit

An overlay is private only as long as your screen is private. This is the one limit worth stating plainly: if you share your entire screen, anything drawn on that screen, including the overlay, is part of what the other side sees.

Imagine a data analyst in a panel interview who is asked to share their screen to walk through a query. At that moment the overlay is no longer local to their eyes; it renders inside the shared image. The safe habit is to share a single application window rather than the full desktop, or to move the overlay off any screen you intend to present. SubcueAI cannot make an overlay invisible inside a stream you are broadcasting, and it does not claim to.

Related reading on what interviewers can observe lives in the detectability topic hub.

Placing the overlay so it helps rather than distracts

The value of an overlay depends on where you put it and how little you rely on it. Keeping it near your webcam means your eyes stay close to the camera line while you read, which looks more natural than glancing to a far corner. Treat the suggestions as a prompt to recall your own answer, not a script to read aloud, because reading verbatim is easy to hear in your delivery.

Setup steps for placing and sizing the panel are on the tutorial page.

FAQ

Is an AI interview overlay the same as a meeting bot?

No. A bot joins the call as an attendee and shows up in the participant list. An overlay is a local window on your own screen that never joins the meeting, so the roster is unchanged.

Can the interviewer see my overlay?

Not from a normal video feed, since it lives only on your display. The exception is screen sharing: if you share your full screen, the overlay is inside the shared image. Share a single window to avoid that.

What does the overlay actually show?

A live transcript of the interviewer's words and short suggested talking points, updated as the conversation moves. It is a glance-at reference, not a full script to read from.

Does the overlay work on Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams?

Yes. Because it is an operating-system window rather than a meeting participant, it sits above Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams the same way, on macOS or Windows.