Unified macOS panel to manage multiple AI models

What to build

A macOS menu-bar / panel app — inspired by Raycast — that lets power users and developers send the same prompt to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity simultaneously, view responses side-by-side, and search across their conversation history from all four tools in one place. Think of it as a unified AI command palette that lives one keyboard shortcut away.

Every serious AI user juggles 3-4 browser tabs daily and loses context every time they switch models. A lightweight macOS panel that unifies prompt dispatch and conversation history across the major AI tools closes that gap without waiting for the providers to do it themselves.

Demand

Developer and power-user communities are actively requesting this — threads on r/SideProject show builders already exploring the idea and soliciting feature input. The timing is right because AI tool fragmentation has peaked: most power users now routinely run Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini in parallel, creating daily friction that no native product yet solves.

• Reddit r/SideProjectNews

  Live r/SideProject thread: 'Building a Raycast-inspired panel to solve everyday AI frustrations. Any requests?' — a builder actively soliciting feature requests from developers, confirming community interest and willingness to shape the product.

• RaycastProduct

  Raycast has built a large, paying developer following on macOS purely on the promise of keyboard-driven, unified workflows — validating that this audience will pay for productivity tools that reduce friction.

• Reddit / Hacker News community signalNews

  Developer communities on Reddit and Hacker News frequently surface complaints about managing multiple AI chat interfaces simultaneously — specifically citing missing cross-model context persistence and the need to re-enter the same prompt in several tools.

• Perplexity / ChatGPT / Claude / Gemini product pagesProduct

  None of the four major AI assistants offer cross-platform conversation history search or native side-by-side multi-model comparison, confirming the feature gap a third-party tool would fill.

• Mac App Store analytics (third-party reports)Report

  Productivity and developer tools are consistently among top-grossing Mac App Store categories, supporting a paid-app or subscription monetisation model for a niche AI workspace utility.

Stack

• Swift / SwiftUI (native macOS panel + menu-bar app)
• OpenAI Chat Completions API
• Anthropic Claude API
• Google Gemini API
• Perplexity API
• SQLite / Core Data (local conversation history index)

Solo + AI difficulty

The UI shell and multi-model prompt dispatch are straightforward with SwiftUI and the four REST APIs — a functional MVP is achievable in 3-4 weeks of focused building. The hard parts are conversation-history ingestion (providers don't expose export APIs, so history sync likely requires browser-extension scraping or manual import) and keeping up with API changes across four providers. Legal review of each provider's ToS around automated access is essential before launch.

Entry threshold

Requires macOS native development skills (Swift or Electron), plus API integrations with multiple AI providers. The core UI and basic cross-model querying can be prototyped in a few weeks; the main effort is building robust conversation ingestion from each provider. No licences or capital needed beyond developer accounts.

Window

6-12 months

Where to find first users

• Post updates and a waitlist in the original r/SideProject thread and cross-post to r/macapps and r/artificial
• Product Hunt launch targeting the 'Mac Apps' and 'AI Tools' categories
• Hacker News 'Show HN' post with a short demo video
• Direct outreach in Raycast's community Discord and subreddit (r/raycast) where the target audience already lives

Competitors

• Raycast AI
• ChatHub
• BoltAI
• Merlin

Counter-signals & risks

• OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google may ship native cross-model or unified workspace features, making a third-party aggregator redundant before it gains traction.

• API rate limits, ToS restrictions, and the complete absence of official conversation-history export APIs from major providers could make deep history sync technically infeasible or legally risky.

• The addressable market of truly cross-model power users is a small fraction of overall AI tool users, which may cap revenue potential for a paid standalone Mac app.