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How Moe answers you

Moe is a voice assistant that you can also type to, and it tells the difference: a question asked out loud comes back out loud and short; a question typed comes back written, at the length it needs. Settings › Replies is where that is decided.

Who Moe is#

Moe is on your side: part colleague, part friend, and the one who actually gets things done. Warm without gushing, direct without being curt. It says the answer first and does not narrate.

It is honest about what it knows, because you act on what it tells you. A judgement call comes as its best guess, and it says so. A fact it could not check, a price, a date, a count, it will not guess: it says it could not confirm it, and how it could be found out if that matters. It has opinions. If something looks like a mistake, it says so once, kindly, with its reason; then it is your call, and it helps with whatever you choose.

Moe knows where it is. On your Mac it may use all of it: files, apps, the browser, mail, calendar, messages and the screen. Moe in the cloud (see Away) knows it answers while the Mac is asleep, that it cannot see the Mac's files or screen, and that anything needing the Mac waits for the Mac to wake. To you it is one Moe, with one memory, on every channel you set up.

Moe does it, rather than telling you how#

Tell Moe something is not working, or ask how to do something, and if its tools can do it, your files, your mail, the web, your apps and browser, it does it and tells you what it did, instead of giving you a list of steps. If it is not sure you want it to, it offers in a line: "Want me to take care of it?" You only get steps for the part that needs your own hands, like typing a password, paying, or signing, or when you ask for steps.

Anything that sends, posts, buys or deletes still waits for your yes (see Before anything goes out): Moe does the work up to that point and asks.

How much Moe says#

Reply length sets how long Moe's answers are:

Short — one sentence out loud, a few lines in writing. The answer and nothing around it. This is the default: Moe is something you talk to, and a spoken answer is better short.
Balanced — a sentence or two out loud, and whatever a typed question needs.
Detailed — up to a short paragraph out loud, and an in-depth written answer with the reasoning, the options and what to watch out for.

Spoken answers stay tighter than written ones at every setting, because you cannot skim something you are listening to. Asking for more, "tell me everything", always gets more, whatever this is set to. The chat apps you message Moe from follow the same setting.

Out loud, or on screen#

Three switches, because talking and typing are separate questions:

Speak replies out loud is the master. Off, Moe never says anything and every answer is on screen. Moe is also silent for the whole of a recorded meeting whatever this says; the room and the call would hear it.
When you talk to Moe — on. You asked out loud, so the answer comes back out loud.
When you type to Moe — off. Typed in, text out. Turn it on if you want a typed question answered aloud as well as shown.

Written to be read#

Write answers to typed questions to be read, not heard changes what the answer is, not just how it arrives. A spoken answer is one or two short sentences with no lists and no formatting, which is right when you are listening and wrong when you are not. On, and it is on, a question you typed comes back written as writing: short lists and headings where they help, links you can click, and the length the question needs. Off, a typed question gets the same spoken-shaped answer.

The panel under the notch#

Open by itself when an answer is ready decides whether the island expands to show you an answer.

Only when Moe stays quiet — the default. An answer you were told is an answer that reached you; a panel over your screen would be an interruption rather than a delivery.
Always — to read along while Moe talks.
Never — for a shared screen. The answer is still in Chat.

A recorded meeting always opens it, whatever this says: the reply is not being spoken then, so the panel is the only place it exists.

How long it stays is 6 seconds, 12 seconds, 30 seconds or Until I dismiss it; it starts at until I dismiss it, because an answer Moe did not say out loud is one you have not seen yet, and it should not vanish on a timer. With a number, the clock restarts while the cursor is on the panel, while the field has the keyboard, or while there is a half-typed question in it; a click in another app folds it at once either way.

To close it yourself: the ⌃ button in the top right, or Esc. Folding is only folding; it leaves Moe alone and the conversation where it was. The ✕ beside it appears only while Moe is actually working: that one stops the turn and closes the microphone. On a Mac with a notch both sit in the black strip beside the notch. The panel shows the last few turns, and there is always a box to type in with a Send button; the + beside it takes a photo or a file.

Anything Moe needs you to see before the conversation, a reminder that came due, a call it can record, a new version of Moe ready to install, or the talk key waiting on Accessibility, sits at the top of the panel, and the panel grows to hold all of it.

Every Mac. The island fits whatever notch your Mac has, at any display scaling, and lines up with the notch itself rather than the middle of the screen. A Mac with no notch, an iMac, an older MacBook Air or an external display, gets a small black tab in the middle of the menu bar instead, and the glow and the working light trace around it. With a laptop and an external display, Moe stays on the laptop's notch. Before you have said anything, the panel greets you by the hour, Good morning — I'm here.

While Moe is working#

Say "on it" as soon as I ask — off to start with. Said the moment you finish asking, before Moe has started on the answer, so you know it heard you. It is said from your Mac, before anything is asked of the model, and it only ever repeats what you asked and never guesses how it will go.
Tell me what it's doing while it works — on. "Checking your calendar", said when something takes a while; you are listening rather than watching, and a long silence sounds like Moe has stopped. Off, Moe says nothing between "on it" and the answer; the island still shows the step.
Ding when a written answer is ready — on. One soft note, only when Moe is not going to say the answer out loud, so a question you typed and went back to work does not sit unread in the panel. Hear it plays the note.
Typed questions open the Chat window — off. The answer stays in the panel under the notch, on whatever you were reading; a question asked while looking at your notes is often about the notes. On, every question you type opens Chat, where a long answer has room.

Handing a job off. Say "in the background", or ask for something that is plainly a long job you do not need to sit through, and Moe hands it to a helper of its own, tells you in one line that it is running, and gives you the conversation back. Ask it something else meanwhile; it answers. When the helper finishes, Moe tells you the outcome the way it would a reminder: spoken, in its own words, with what got done, what did not, and anything you need to decide. That is the whole of what you hear about it; the helper's own steps stay in its transcript. It works the same whichever brain Moe thinks with. While Moe itself works on something in front of you, what it says is its own account of the work; there is no stock "still on it" line, and if you would rather hear nothing at all, Work silently on the notch is the switch.

A question outlives a sleep. While Moe is working on something for you, your Mac does not doze off on its own — the idle timer is held until the answer is in. Close the lid and it sleeps as ever; if that cut the work off, Moe notices on wake and carries on where it was, once, telling you it is picking up rather than starting again. The same if you quit Moe, or it was closed for you, in the middle of an answer: within half an hour of opening it again, on the same conversation, it picks the question back up. It never picks up a question twice.

You can always say the next thing. Moe does a few things around an answer that you never see, going back over the conversation for anything worth remembering, keeping its notes in order, and none of them hold the conversation: say something while one is running and Moe answers. If Moe is genuinely still finishing the answer before, your message waits for that one and is answered next.

Addresses are shown, never spoken#

Moe never reads a web address out loud. Any address in an answer is a real, clickable link in Chat and in the panel, whether Moe wrote it as a link or simply as an address, and the spoken version says the label and skips the address entirely.

Moe comes back to things#

Moe keeps a list of open loops and brings them up later, without being asked: on the notch if you are at the Mac, otherwise on whichever chat app you set up. Five kinds of thing go on it: what you said you'd do; what Moe started (a booking, an order) and should check landed; people waiting on you; deadlines, with the preparation done early; and things you looked at that can change, a price, a slot, a delivery, which Moe watches without thinking and speaks about only when they move. How it works, and the switches for it, are under Running in the background.