The Vergecast I just want AI to rename my photos
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Nov 30, 2025 
Thomas Paul Mann, co-founder and CEO of Raycast, shares insights on integrating AI into productivity apps. He discusses how AI transforms Raycast into a 'prompt-first' interface and addresses privacy trade-offs with extensive access to files and apps. Mann explains the importance of user customization and daily workflows, such as file renaming and text fixes. He also ponders the future of AI in software, emphasizing the balance between innovation and user privacy, ensuring a reliable user experience while exploring the potential of contextual AI.
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Prompt-First Interface Fits Raycast
- Raycast became a natural prompt interface because its global search box fit the emergent prompt-first behavior users wanted.
- Thomas Paul Mann says early integration with GPT-3 revealed prompting as a way to speak naturally to a computer.
Provide Auto Mode Plus Advanced Controls
- Integrate multiple models and let users choose or default to an automatic mode that selects the best model.
- Offer configurability for advanced users while hiding complexity for most users, Thomas Paul Mann advises.
Contextual AI Lives On The OS Level
- Raycast's extensions and local context (files, calendar, usage patterns) enable a contextual AI that follows you across apps.
- Mann calls this personal contextual AI the key to making useful OS-level assistants.