If you've used Gmail's built-in writing assistant, you already know the shape of what you want: highlight a rough draft, get help making it better, without leaving the email. The problem shows up the moment you're not in Gmail. Write in Outlook, Slack, a Word doc, a support ticket, or a field in your CRM, and that convenience is gone. You're back to writing it yourself, or copying it into a separate AI tool and copying the result back.
KeyShift AI does the same kind of in-place help, but it isn't scoped to one inbox. It works in whatever you're typing in, because it isn't part of any single app — it sits underneath all of them.
The part that's actually different: it isn't a fixed menu
Built-in writing assistants tend to offer a short list of preset actions: formalize, shorten, elaborate, and a few others. Useful, but you're choosing from their list.
KeyShift's result window has a plain-English follow-up box instead. If the first draft is close but not quite right, you just say what's off:
keep the first paragraph, redo the rest to be shorter
mention that the delay wasn't on our end, but stay polite about it
That's a real instruction, not a button. It can be as specific as the actual thing you want changed, because you're describing it in words instead of picking from a preset list.
How it actually works, in any app
Two ways in, depending on whether you're starting from existing text or from nothing:
Already wrote something rough? Select it, press Ctrl+Shift+A, and pick an action — fix it up, make it more professional, translate it, whatever the moment calls for. It's replaced in place.
Starting from scratch? Type normally, then right after it, type keyshift followed by what you want, and press space twice:
hey just wanted to check on the invoice from last week keyshift make this more professional
Double space, and the sentence before keyshift becomes the polished version — in the same field, whether that's Outlook, a Slack message, a Notion doc, or a text box inside whatever internal tool your company uses.
One more thing: you choose the model
Gmail's assistant runs on whichever model Google has wired up for it. KeyShift lets you bring your own key instead, OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, or a local model if you'd rather nothing leave your machine at all. See the BYOK guide if that matters to you.
Every plan, including Free, includes the writing modes described here. Try it free with 25 credits a month, or see pricing if you already know you'll be using it daily.