London startup Relay has launched a macOS voice-to-text app and plans to release a dedicated portable microphone, the Relay Q, in early 2027. Founded by former Nothing employees Cookie Xu and Raymond Zhu, it aims to make workplace dictation more practical by allowing users to speak quietly without relying on a computer’s built-in microphone. The product matters because it combines transcription with AI-driven desktop actions, but it also raises privacy and security concerns through the broad permissions needed.

Relay is powered by Google’s Gemini models and activates in any text field via a configurable hotkey, with the default set to Fn. Its “Skills” can draft messages, create calendar events and interact with apps such as Slack, WhatsApp and Gmail, although tests found some functions unreliable and transcription less accurate than Google’s Pixel 11 Rambler feature. Relay says data is stored locally and can be deleted by users; however, processing passes through Relay’s servers to Google, while optional screen snapshots enable automation across the operating system.