Hark, a startup founded by Brett Adcock, has launched Hark Pro, an AI assistant with a focus on privacy. Unlike some of its competitors, Hark Pro is designed to use your computer for you, offering a full-screen experience with chat dialogs and task prompts. Abidur Chowdhury, who leads design at Hark, demonstrated how the AI proactively asked about expenses, emails, and even booked a flight for a reporter. The company's mission is to create an operating system for the AI computers of the future, not to sell ads or steal data.

The challenge with these apps is finding useful tasks. Hark Pro’s AI recently recognized that a colleague needed to renew their car registration and handled it through the agency’s website. One unique feature is that Hark shows the agent’s web navigation in a small window, building trust that the agent is doing the right thing. Beyond cybersecurity concerns, will users feel comfortable sharing their entire digital lives with a company like Meta?

What sets Hark Pro apart is its effort to fully substitute for your computer. Abidur Chowdhury believes it just works better than its competitors. However, it remains to be seen what kind of model best suits the AI personal assistant. Hark’s is explicitly trained for computer use, making it faster at those tasks but potentially trading away broader knowledge. The company promises to release an AI-native device in 2027, but is keeping the form a mystery.