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Talk to your Chief by voice

You can speak to your Chief of Staff instead of typing. Crew turns what you say into text on this Mac, puts it in the composer, and sends it the same way Return does.

Ways to talk

• The composer's mic. Hold it, speak, and let go to send. In your Chief's conversation, a click turns on hands-free. In a project thread, a click starts macOS Dictation in the field instead.
• Talk › Hands-Free (⇧⌘L) brings your Chief forward with hands-free on. Talk › Stop Listening stops it.
• Talk to your Chief in the menu bar panel opens Crew with hands-free on.
• A talk key. There is none until you pick one in Settings › Voice. Hold it to talk from any app. Tap it inside Crew to turn hands-free on or off. None removes it.

Hands-free

The line under the composer reads Hands-free · sends when you pause · Esc stops. When you stop speaking, it shows Sending… · Esc keeps it here for a moment before it sends. Speak again, click in the composer or press Esc during that moment, and your words stay in the draft. Hands-free pauses while Crew isn't in front, and stops after 2 minutes of quiet.

Settings › Voice

• Talk key, Language and its Status. A language that isn't on this Mac yet shows Download. Crew never starts that download for you.
• Read replies aloud is off by default. It reads only your Chief's replies to what you said out loud: the first line of a long reply, the rest on screen. Voice and Play Sample pick and test the Mac voice.
• Microphone shows whether Crew may use it. macOS asks for the microphone and for Speech Recognition the first time you talk. If either is off, the line offers Open System Settings.

What leaves your Mac

Speech is turned into text by the Mac's own on-device dictation model. Crew doesn't send your audio anywhere, and it doesn't record or keep audio. Only the words land in your message, and they go to your Chief like a typed message. Replies read aloud use a voice on this Mac.

The one exception is Premium voice (ElevenLabs). It appears only when Crew on this Mac offers it, and it is off until you turn it on with your own ElevenLabs key. With it on, your Chief's replies are sent to ElevenLabs to be spoken.