PaletteBrain

Purpose

PaletteBrain is a macOS productivity app whose goal is to bring ChatGPT capabilities into all apps and websites on a Mac. Users do not need to switch between windows or copy and paste text; with shortcuts, they can run AI commands on selected text, thereby speeding up tasks such as writing, coding, translation, summarization, and grammar correction.

Main Capabilities

• Run AI commands on selected text in any macOS app or website; the official examples include Notion, Google Docs, Slack, Discord, Gmail, and others.
• Custom AI commands and prompts: you can create commands for common operations, such as correcting grammar, translating, summarizing into bullet points, converting into a blog post, refactoring code, and more.
• Keyboard shortcut binding: bind shortcuts to commands for quick triggering.
• Command control: parameters such as model and creativity can be configured.
• Use your own OpenAI API key or Microsoft Azure OpenAI: the official description says it achieves faster operation through native Microsoft Azure OpenAI and can be paired with experimental models and dedicated infrastructure models; using the latest OpenAI models requires no ChatGPT Plus subscription, and you pay OpenAI directly on a usage basis.
• Conversation management: manage and save all conversations in one place, and permanently delete conversations; search, renaming, and timestamp grouping are currently supported.
• Runs in the background with no distractions; supports automatic updates throughout its lifecycle, continuously keeping up with the latest AI models.
• Roadmap (officially marked as not yet available, coming soon): support for multiple models beyond OpenAI in a single macOS app (Google, Meta, Mistral, Perplexity, Anthropic, xAI, etc.), and running them through an Agent.so membership; integration with Agent.so's AI Agents; multimodal RAG file analysis, supporting conversations with files such as PDFs; native image attachments and AI vision; importing conversations from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Anthropic, Raycast, and others; organizational tools such as folders, tags, favorites, and reordering, as well as sharing; syncing messages and conversations across devices via iCloud and an Agent.so account.

How to Use

The officially described workflow is:

1. Select the text you want to process in any app.
2. Press the shortKey to open the AI command palette.
3. Run commands to conduct AI conversation/processing on the selected text.
4. Press the shortcut key to paste the last reply back into the original application.

Prerequisites: The official FAQ mentions that certain prerequisites are required (the page does not elaborate on the specific content in the materials), and a ChatGPT API Key is needed; billing is through OpenAI based on usage. The official statement says most users' OpenAI costs are less than $1 per month, and claims it is about 20 times cheaper than ChatGPT Plus.

Use Cases

The users mentioned by the official include founders, creators, employees, as well as content creators, podcast scriptwriters, technical copywriters, marketers, teachers, recruiters, and marketers, etc. Typical scenarios include: directly invoking ChatGPT in email and social media platforms; using templates to generate podcast episode outlines and guest questions; reusing prompts for clients' blog posts; creating lesson plans and quizzes in educational tools; writing, coding, and problem-solving.

Pricing

The official page shows: one-time purchase, all features available in all plans.

• Personal License: $29 (limited-time offer for early supporters, after which the price will change to $99 per year rather than lifetime). The official description says it is suitable for one computer.
• There are two other plans: suitable for multiple computers or sharing with family/team (5 macOS devices); and unlimited number of macOS devices, suitable for teams, startups, and scaling enterprises, including priority email and online chat support. The materials do not provide specific prices for these two plans.
• Payments are processed by Lemon Squeezy (a Stripe company) on behalf of Abruptive LLC, prices are in US dollars, and VAT may be charged depending on location.

Platforms and Limitations

• Only supports macOS. The official FAQ explicitly lists the question "Is it compatible with Windows or Linux", but the materials do not provide the answer text to that question; based on the overall page positioning, it is a macOS application.
• Requires your own OpenAI or Azure API Key, pay-as-you-go to OpenAI/Azure.
• A ChatGPT Plus subscription cannot be used instead of an API Key (the official FAQ lists this question, but the materials do not provide the answer text).
• Features on the roadmap are not yet available, including multi-model, AI Agents, file conversations, image attachments, conversation import, more organizational tools, cross-device sync, etc.

Other Notes

The official describes PaletteBrain as a bootstrapped project, and purchasing a license helps sustain operations and fund research and development at Abruptive Institute. The official FAQ also lists questions about data protection and refund policies, but the materials do not provide the answer text to these questions, and specific details are not yet available.