Screenpipe: The YC-Backed Tool That Gives Your AI Agents a Memory (Launched July 2026)

What Is Screenpipe?

Screenpipe is an open-source desktop application that continuously records your screen activity — locally, on your machine — and makes that data accessible to AI agents like Claude, Codex, and Cursor. It launched on July 23, 2026 as part of Y Combinator's Summer 2026 batch and has already amassed over 20,000 GitHub stars.

The core idea is simple but powerful: AI agents today have no persistent context about your work. They don't know what you read yesterday, which Slack message made you decide to refactor that function, or what you saw in a customer demo video last week. Screenpipe solves this by giving your AI tools a continuous feed of everything you've seen, said, and done on your computer.

You can find the project on GitHub (screenpipe)

and the official website at screenpipe.com.

Why It Matters for Founders

Every founder wears many hats. In a single day you might review a five-page investor deck, debug a production issue, browse 15 different tool dashboards, read three industry reports, and have two customer calls. The cognitive load is enormous — and an AI assistant that only sees the current conversation tab misses 99% of your context.

Screenpipe fills that gap. It creates a searchable, AI-accessible timeline of your entire workday. When you ask your coding agent to refactor a feature, it doesn't just see your code — it knows the Slack thread and the customer ticket that prompted the change.

Why it matters: For bootstrapped founders running lean teams, this means your AI tools actually understand your business context without you having to re-explain everything every time.

How It Works (Without Being Creepy)

The privacy angle is the first question everyone asks. Screenpipe runs entirely on your local machine. No data is sent to the cloud. The recordings are processed locally and stored on your own hard drive. It works with open-source OCR, audio transcription, and screen capture libraries — all running on-device.

Here's what it captures:

• Screen recordings at intervals (configurable) — visual snapshots of what's on your monitor.

• Audio transcripts — if you enable it, Screenpipe transcribes meetings, calls, and voice memos locally.

• Keyboard activity patterns (not keystroke content) — to understand context switches, not to log passwords.

• Window titles and application names — so AI agents know which tool you were using when.

All of this feeds into a local database that your AI agents can query. The integration with Claude, Codex, and Cursor happens through MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers and SDKs, meaning you don't need to change how you work.

Real Ways Founders Are Using Screenpipe

Context-Rich Code Reviews

When a developer asks an AI coding agent to review a pull request, the agent can pull Screenpipe context to see the full thread — the Loom video walkthrough, the Notion spec, and the Slack discussion — and produce a review that actually understands the intent.

CRM Without Data Entry

Screenpipe can detect when you're on a customer call (via calendar + window context) and automatically log the conversation summary, action items, and sentiment to your CRM or Notion. Founders using this setup report spending 40% less time on manual data entry.

Instant Meeting Recall

Instead of scrolling through hours of meeting recordings, you can ask your AI agent: "What did we agree to in the investor call on Tuesday?" Screenpipe surfaces the relevant transcript segment along with any decks or documents that were open during that conversation.

Onboarding New Contractors

Handing off context to a new hire or contractor is one of the hardest parts of running a small team. Screenpipe can generate a written summary of your last week — decisions made, customers contacted, blockers encountered — that takes someone from zero to useful in minutes.

Who Is Behind It?

Screenpipe was built by Mediar AI, a Y Combinator S26 startup. The team includes engineers with backgrounds in system design, audio processing, and privacy-preserving machine learning. They've been vocal about their philosophy: AI agents should adapt to your workflow, not the other way around.

The entire project is open-source (MIT license), which has contributed to its rapid adoption. Developers can audit the code, contribute features, or fork the project to build custom integrations.

Screenpipe vs. Other Tools

Screenpipe shares some territory with meeting note-takers like Granola and Krisp, but it's fundamentally different in scope. Meeting tools only capture meetings. Screenpipe captures your entire workday.

It also overlaps conceptually with Rewind AI (which was acquired), but Rewind was macOS-only and relied on cloud processing for some features. Screenpipe is cross-platform (macOS, Windows, Linux) and fully local.

For founders who already use context tools like Notion and Obsidian, Screenpipe fills a complementary role — it's not a note-taking app, it's a memory layer that feeds into your note-taking app through AI agent integrations.

What You Should Know Before Trying It

Screenpipe is a power user tool. The setup involves running a local server, configuring MCP integrations, and granting screen recording permissions. It's not a one-click SaaS product — yet. The team is working on a consumer-friendly version, but right now it's best suited to technically comfortable founders.

System resource usage is moderate. Expect about 200-400 MB of RAM and occasional CPU spikes during transcription. On a modern M-series Mac or equivalent PC, the impact is barely noticeable.

Storage depends on recording frequency. At default settings, a day of work uses about 1-2 GB. Weekly cleanup is recommended.

The Honest Takeaway

Screenpipe is one of those rare tools that feels like it shouldn't exist — full-screen recording, locally processed, feeding data into AI agents — and yet it works. For founders who are already deep into AI-assisted workflows, it's a force multiplier. Your AI tools stop asking "what are you working on?" and start knowing.

It's not for everyone. If you're uncomfortable with the idea of your machine recording everything you do — even locally — Screenpipe may not be for you. And the setup friction is real.

But if you're a founder who wants your AI agents to actually understand your business context without manual hand-holding, Screenpipe is worth a serious look. At 20K+ GitHub stars in its first week, the community clearly agrees.