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Voice Assistant

The Voice Assistant is a hands-free AI companion that runs in the background on your desktop. It lets you have real-time voice conversations with Kognar Chat without bringing the main window to the foreground.

Enabling the Voice Assistant​

  1. Open Settings (Ctrl/Cmd+U)
  2. Go to the Assistant section
  3. Toggle Enable voice assistant on
  4. Optionally change the global shortcut used to activate it from anywhere on your system (default: CommandOrControl+Shift+Space)
  5. Click Save Changes

If a newly set shortcut does not take effect, restart the app.

See Assistant Settings for the full list of options.

The floating control​

When active, a small floating control appears near the bottom-center of your screen. It stays on top of other windows so you can always reach it.

Use it to:

  • Start / stop a voice conversation
  • See the current status (listening, processing, responding)

How it works​

  1. Activate with the global shortcut or by clicking the floating control
  2. Speak naturally — the assistant listens in real time
  3. Kognar responds with voice output
  4. Continue the back-and-forth without typing

Each voice session is saved as a new conversation in your chat history, just like a text conversation.

Settings​

Found in Settings → Assistant:

SettingDescription
Enable voice assistantTurn the floating control and global shortcut on or off
Global shortcutKeyboard shortcut to activate the assistant from any app. Default CommandOrControl+Shift+Space
Assistant languageSame as app language, English, or Português (BR)

How your speech is turned into text is configured separately in Settings → General → Voice & transcription — see Audio Transcription.

note

If the assistant reports that it cannot start a session, sign in from the main window and wait for the credentials to sync, then try again.

Voice input in chat​

Outside of the full voice assistant, you can also use voice to fill the chat input field:

  1. Click the microphone icon in the chat input bar
  2. Speak your message
  3. The text is transcribed and placed in the input field automatically
  4. Review and press Enter to send

This is useful for dictating longer messages without switching to full voice mode.

See Transcription for details on how audio is processed.