Lesser-known Android trick could make ChatGPT's screen sharing way smoother on your phone

The next big challenge for any AI chatbot, Gemini and ChatGPT included, is to assume the role of a useful assistant that can accomplish tasks without intervention or asking you to share minute details. For that to work smoothly, chatbots can already see what’s on your screen, though the method can be a bit intensive on your phone’s hardware.

OpenAI is looking for a way out by using an uncommon method that could change how screen sharing with ChatGPT works on Android.

ChatGPT on Android currently uses the MediaProjection API, which is also used for screen recording or casting the screen to an external display, to see what’s on your screen. This method can feel clunky for various reasons, including the different permissions dialogs and warning pop-ups that appear, which can obstruct your workflow. Since the API also continuously records the screen, this can lead to high resource utilization, slowing down other processes.

To address these concerns, OpenAI is developing a new method that could serve the same function while using fewer resources. In version 1.2026.118 of the ChatGPT app on Android, we’ve discovered that OpenAI is toying with the idea of using Android’s Accessibility settings, along with Android’s Bubbles multitasking feature, to let the chatbot see what’s on your screen.

While Bubbles were introduced as a feature in Android 17, the API has been around for much longer (since at least Android 11), so the ChatGPT app can use it on phones running versions below Android 17.

The feature changes the workflow for Screen Sharing in ChatGPT. When it is enabled for the first time, users will be required to enable certain settings so ChatGPT can “read visible text, buttons, and screen details.” They’re first guided to enable “ChatGPT screen help” in Android’s Accessibility settings, following which they would need to enable notifications and conversation bubbles for the app. These settings would prevent the app from being killed.

Once permissions are granted, a conversation bubble will appear on your phone’s screen, and you can use it to see what’s on your screen, whether you’re on the home screen or in an app.

You will be able to interact with ChatGPT by tapping this bubble, as you can see in the video below. Here you will have the option to ask specific questions about the screen’s contents, and it will ignore any context from the existing chat, focusing only on what it currently sees on your screen.

While this approach bypasses the excessive resource utilization of the existing screen-sharing method, granting Accessibility access to an AI  chatbot could also be a concern for some wary users. We’re unsure how OpenAI plans to deal with those apprehensions, or how soon we could see the feature being implemented.