MIND & MACHINE

Opening my laptop to begin work for the day hardly seems revolutionary, but take a journey with me into the near future and you'll see radical change emerging just beneath the familiar.

When I log into my machine, I'm greeted with what I would describe as curated intelligence about my job (not just my work). In addition to summaries of what was accomplished (or not) yesterday, I have a clear view of how to begin thinking about my day, comprehensively. There are recommendations about what to prioritize and how to change my schedule, but more importantly, the context I have on the status of key projects and team members help me make immediate, intelligent decisions about how to use my time. Considering that I've opened my computer thousands of times in the past, the routine almost feels rote, save for one fundamental difference: for the first time, I have an immense amount of confidence within moments of stepping into the world of my digital work.

Distance isn't often a concept used to describe the way people interact with an operating system, but it's the most appropriate way to articulate the sensation of how I turn context into action—how I begin doing work. Action feels close. In part, that's because the information I need is already in front of me. What creates the sensation of closeness, though, is how I actually execute work. I don't have to travel anywhere, I simply begin working. I create information, consume information, communicate, update my schedule, plan and think. There isn't a single interaction modality—form follows workflow. I write when I need to write, I speak when I need to speak and when I need to turn specific knobs in a specialized tool, I simply reach for it and use it. When I switch devices, the context follows me and I keep working. The closest feeling I've had in the physical world is riding an electric bicycle. The fundamental experience is familiar and natural—pedaling and steering on a two-wheeled vehicle—but the underlying technology means I cover dramatically more distance using a fraction of the effort. It's exponential impact over time, yet I don't notice it in the moment.

This is a picture of the revolution: a human-computer experience that unlocks the immense potential of knowledge workers, enables unprecedented levels of creative productivity and eliminates hundreds of billions of dollars of inefficiency waste—all through an interface that simply works and feels like we've always felt it should.

This sounds like a vision that only operating system owners Apple and Microsoft could deliver, but it's more reality than vision and the shift isn't being led by the incumbents in Cupertino or Redmond. It is being enabled by a startup called Raycast, who is poised to become the default interface for knowledge work.

In hindsight this makes complete sense. Raycast's manifesto envisions a constant state of flow. At a fundamental level, achieving flow for knowledge workers requires not only transcending click labyrinths and context switching by reimagining the workflow interface itself, but also leveraging the power of LLMs as a key part of the underlying engine to make using a computer and executing work truly personal and, as a result, truly productive.

Building this future is a monumental undertaking and the product has a ways to go, but the Raycast team has demonstrated that they are up to the task. If they begin to realize the vision, though, what does it mean for their business?

An Apple acquisition has been on everyone's mind from the beginning. Owning Spotlight would certainly be a tremendous achievement for the startup, but that sells even the current state of their product short, especially when it comes to AI. In this future, Raycast should own not only Spotlight, but the entire Siri and app management ecosystems as well.

Atlassian's investment is entirely logical and by all accounts they would likely be the most hands-off parent, but that path would likely cement Raycast's future as a dedicated productivity tool.

I believe the Raycast team can build a generational company. Their foundational focus on user experience, their brilliant integration of AI and their clear vision for flow across platforms could pave the path to a future where Raycast isn't a productivity or AI tool, it is how I use my computer as a knowledge worker.