💡 Screen Companion Mode: Always-On Floating Avatar Widget

[github-actions[bot]]

Summary

A minimal always-on floating avatar window that provides ambient desktop presence — activated by voice or global hotkey, the avatar is "there" without requiring a full TalkTerm session. Quick interactions (summarize this page, check my calendar, quick question) happen in-place; complex workflows open the full TalkTerm window.

Market Signal

Lepro Ami (CES 2026) proved "always-on visual presence" creates a fundamentally different user relationship — users describe it as "felt in the room" rather than "an app I launched." Desktop Companion (itch.io) ships an AI companion with Live2D avatars that sees the screen, talks back, and remembers users. Kaltura acquired eSelf.ai for agentic avatars that "see the user's screen, understand intent, and respond in milliseconds." The always-on AI companion is an emerging form factor validated by hardware (Lepro), acquisitions (Kaltura/eSelf), and indie products (Desktop Companion) in 2026.

User Signal

TalkTerm's PRD already plans system tray presence (Phase 2) and system notifications for background tasks. The "companion, not tool" design principle implies users should feel the avatar is present, not just available. Sarah wants to ask Mary quick questions between meetings without ceremony — launching the full app, waiting for setup, navigating to conversation. TalkTerm's business metrics require ≥1 session/day within 30 days; ambient presence creates habitual interaction.

Technical Opportunity

Electron's BrowserWindow with alwaysOnTop and transparent background already supports floating widgets natively. The Rive avatar can render at reduced frame rate (10fps idle, 30fps active) to minimize GPU/battery impact — Rive WebGL2 is designed for this. The voice pipeline (Web Speech API STT/TTS) works in any Electron window. Quick-command mode reuses the existing IPC bridge (agent:message, agent:action) and AgentBackend interface with zero new architecture.

Assessment

Dimension	Score	Rationale
Feasibility	high	Electron natively supports the window management; existing architecture (IPC, avatar, voice) reused entirely
Impact	high	Transforms TalkTerm from "app I launch" to "companion that's always there" — psychological shift that drives daily engagement
Urgency	low	No competitor has shipped a production-quality avatar companion with real agent power; window of opportunity is wide

Adversarial Review

Strongest objection: Desktop widgets historically have low engagement. Users minimize them and forget they exist. Always-on rendering wastes GPU and drains laptop batteries.

Rebuttal: Voice activation eliminates the need for visual attention — the avatar is heard, not watched. Idle rendering at 10fps with GPU-optimized Rive WebGL2 uses negligible resources (testable with a quick prototype). Lepro Ami's CES 2026 reception proved users respond differently to an "always present" companion vs. a "launched when needed" tool — the psychological shift from tool to presence is the retention mechanism.

Suggested Next Step

Design spike: prototype a 200×200px floating BrowserWindow with the Rive avatar, global hotkey activation (Cmd+Shift+T / Ctrl+Shift+T), and microphone-only input. Measure idle GPU/memory usage to validate the performance hypothesis before committing to the feature.