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The companion app and Unify Meet’s screen sharing both involve “the assistant and your screen”, so it’s worth being precise about what each one actually is — they’re completely different mechanisms that complement each other.

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What the app runs on your machine

Once installed, the app is a tray icon plus a set of quiet background services:
  • A control channel — the surface your assistant drives when you ask it to act on your machine: a live view of your desktop for its own perception, mouse and keyboard input, browser automation, and command execution.
  • A file channel — the separate, key-guarded service behind filesystem access; it only accepts connections while the toggle is on.
  • The tray app — your local switchboard: status colors, Start/Stop Services, settings, logs, uninstall.
None of this listens for connections from the internet. On startup the app dials outbound to Unify’s secure relay and holds that connection open; everything the assistant does on your machine travels back down the tunnel your machine initiated. Stop the services and the tunnel closes — your machine simply goes dark to the platform. One consequence worth knowing: the live view of your desktop exists for the assistant’s eyes only. It is never displayed anywhere in the Console — not to you, not to anyone.

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Screen sharing is a different thing entirely

On a Unify Meet call, Share your screen is ordinary browser screen sharing — the same picker you’d get in any video call, showing whatever screen or window you choose on the computer you’re calling from. That’s usually your own machine, so yes: Meet screen share does show your computer to your assistant. But it’s a fundamentally different capability from the local app:
Share your screen (Meet)Linked desktop (local app)
What it isA live video feed of your screenA control connection to your machine
Needs the app installed?No — works for everyoneYes
Assistant can seeWhat you’re showing, while you show itYour screen, on request
Assistant can actNever — watch and guide onlyYes — click, type, run, fetch files
Who’s shown whatBoth of you see the shared screenNothing is displayed in the Console
And to complete the picture: the desktop viewer inside a Meet call — Show assistant screen — always shows the assistant’s own machine, never yours. There is no Console window onto your linked desktop, by design.

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How the assistant combines them

When you ask about or point at your screen, the assistant resolves it in a strict order:
  1. An active screen share wins. If you’re sharing on a live call, that’s how it sees your screen — and if you’re collaborating live without a share, it offers one: “Want to share your screen? I’ll see it right away.”
  2. No share running? The linked desktop. With the app installed, it can look at and act on your machine directly through the tunnel — taking a screenshot to answer “what’s on my screen?”, or doing the thing you asked.
  3. Neither available? It says so plainly and offers a screen share — it never claims to see or control your machine when it can’t.

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Watching it work on your machine

So how do you supervise the assistant when it’s driving your linked desktop? Two ways, both natural:
  • Just watch your monitor. It’s your machine — when the assistant works on it, the cursor moves and windows open right in front of you, TeamViewer-style. You’re never watching through a viewer; you’re watching the real thing.
  • Share your screen on a call. If you want to narrate together, hop on a Meet call and share the screen while the assistant works on the linked machine — you both see the same thing and can talk through it live.