Cluely is a desktop app that listens to a video call, reads the screen and shows AI-written suggestions in a window designed not to appear in screen sharing. It was first marketed as a way to cheat in job interviews. This post explains what Cluely is and what you can do about it as an interviewer.
What Cluely is and where it came from
Cluely grew out of Interview Coder, a tool that gave candidates AI-written answers in coding interviews. Its creators, Roy Lee and Neel Shanmugam, were suspended from Columbia University over it in March 2025. They launched Cluely on April 20, 2025, with a campaign that encouraged people to use it to cheat on job interviews, exams and more.
According to Wikipedia's article on Cluely, the company reported 70,000 sign-ups in its first week. It raised $5.3 million in April 2025 and $15 million in June 2025 in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz, $20.3 million in total.
How Cluely works
Cluely sends the call's audio and the screen to a large language model and shows the suggested answers in an overlay designed to be invisible during screen sharing. Many interview assistants work the same way, as we explain in how AI interview assistants work.
How Cluely has changed
After public criticism, Cluely removed exams and interviews from its marketing in late April 2025, and by November 2025 it called itself an AI meeting assistant, comparable to Otter.ai. Independent testing reported by Wikipedia found delays of 5 to 90 seconds and suggestions that were often generic. A candidate can still run it, or a similar app, during an interview.
Can interviewers see Cluely?
Usually not, even when the candidate shares their whole screen. You can still notice its effects and make it less useful.
- Watch for a pause before every answer followed by a fluent reply, and for eyes moving across one part of the screen. Nervous candidates pause too, so look for a pattern.
- Ask follow-up questions about the candidate's own work. See how to stop AI during an interview with the questions you ask.
- Show the question in a form AI tools have trouble reading. dontapplyai draws each question so that people read it easily and AI tools have much more trouble, with a decoy question beside it that assistants often answer.
See also the signs a candidate is using AI.
Frequently asked questions
Is Cluely still used in interviews?
It now markets itself as a meeting assistant, but nothing stops a candidate from running it during an interview.
Does asking the candidate to share their screen stop Cluely?
No, although screen sharing can show you when the candidate switches to another window.
Is it against the rules to use Cluely in an interview?
That depends on the rules you set, so tell candidates beforehand. Our guide on how to stop AI use in interviews includes a sample policy.
