Silkwave

After transcription, Silkwave leverages Apple Intelligence to deliver ChatGPT-powered summaries and AI chat with your recordings. This integration allows you to ask natural language questions about the transcript—such as "What were the main action items?" or "Summarize the client's concerns"—and receive instant, contextually aware answers. The summarization feature condenses hour-long meetings into concise bullet-free recaps, highlighting decisions and deadlines. Because this processing can happen on-device through Apple Intelligence's private cloud compute architecture, sensitive content remains protected. For users who need more powerful reasoning, the app also lets you route transcripts to external models like GPT-4o or Claude Sonnet using your own API keys. This flexibility ensures you get the best of both worlds: the privacy and speed of on-device intelligence when appropriate, and the advanced reasoning of frontier models when you need deeper analysis or creative suggestions.

Silkwave Chat is the bring-your-own-key AI chat client that integrates seamlessly with the transcription workflow. It supports all major model providers—ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Ollama—all within a single, clean interface. Instead of managing separate apps or browser tabs for each AI, you enter your API keys once and switch between models from a unified dropdown. This design simplifies your workflow and helps you compare model responses side by side. A standout feature is the ability to chat with your files: you can drag in PDFs, documents, or other text-based files, and the AI will answer questions grounded in their content. For complete privacy, you can run local models through Ollama, which processes data entirely on your Mac without any network requests. Silkwave Chat also retains conversation history locally, so you can revisit past interactions and build on previous analyses without relying on cloud storage.

The product works through an integrated, linear workflow that mirrors how people actually handle audio information. You launch Silkwave, set up your API keys for any cloud models you want to use (which are stored securely in the macOS keychain), and choose a recording source. As you capture audio, the waveform is displayed in real time; when you stop, the file is immediately transcribed on-device. The transcript then appears in a chat thread, where you can ask Apple Intelligence or any connected model to summarize, extract key points, or answer specific questions. If you import an audio file, the same process applies. The whole environment is persistent, so you can return to a project days later, review the transcript, and continue the conversation. This tight coupling between media and AI makes Silkwave feel less like a set of tools and more like an intelligent research assistant that grows with your work.

Concrete use cases demonstrate the app's versatility. A business consultant recording a strategy meeting gets a verbatim transcript and immediately asks, "What objections did the client raise?" The AI scans the text and lists each concern with timestamps, allowing the consultant to address them in a follow-up email. A university student captures lecture audio, then chats with the transcript to generate a study guide or to clarify confusing concepts by asking the AI to explain jargon terms. A podcaster imports a finished episode, receives a transcript for show notes, and uses a prompt like "Generate three social media posts from this episode" to accelerate promotion. A software developer working on proprietary code uses local Ollama models to discuss architecture decisions without sending code to the cloud, keeping intellectual property completely secure. Each scenario highlights how Silkwave saves time, preserves privacy, and unlocks deeper insight from audio information.

Silkwave is built exclusively for macOS and is optimized for Apple Silicon, taking full advantage of the hardware's machine learning accelerators for fast, efficient on-device transcription and AI processing. The target audience includes professionals who handle sensitive meetings, such as consultants, lawyers, and HR managers; students and academics who need to capture lectures and research interviews; content creators and podcasters who rely on accurate transcripts and AI-assisted content repurposing; and developers and power users who demand flexible, privacy-respecting AI tools. The app requires no monthly subscription for transcription, as it relies on built-in Apple technologies; for AI chat features, you only pay for the API usage of the models you choose to connect, while local models via Ollama incur no additional cost beyond the computing resources of your Mac. In summary, Silkwave is a thoughtfully crafted AI workspace for Mac that puts privacy, control, and integration at the forefront, enabling you to record, transcribe, and converse with your world in one fluid experience.