Beam

Beam is a native macOS app that puts ChatGPT behind a hotkey. Pressing Control and Space opens a floating chat panel over whatever the user is working on, so questions can be asked without switching windows. Selected text can be discussed and then inserted back into the original app with a single key press. The app lets users select an area of the screen and ask about it, create actions that summarize websites, translate text or explain concepts, and save prompts as templates with blanks to fill in. Users can also chat with PDF documents to get summaries and answers, and create AI profiles that configure the model to respond in a set way. It is built as a native macOS application rather than on Electron, runs sandboxed without access to the rest of the system, and its stated design keeps data on the local machine and talks only to OpenAI servers. Beam is aimed at Mac users who want quick access to ChatGPT inside their normal workflow. Its marketing describes a pay what you want model with no subscription and no login. No specific price is published.