- How Donely is quietly redefining productivity
On an otherwise ordinary morning, Harsha Abegunasekara found himself juggling a set of familiar but frustrating tasks. “My girlfriend asked me to send a payment to the cleaner and order toilet paper. Later, at work, my coworker Khan asked me to forward a timesheet and give him access to Clarity,” he recalled. “I thought to myself: Ugh, I wish there’s an AI that can do this. Such simple tasks.”
That moment of exasperation would snowball into something much bigger. By the end of the week, Harsha, also the Chief Executive Officer of Metana Tech Bootcamps, was in his apartment with two of his closest collaborators: Metana’s Head of R&D Chamaru Amasara and founder of The Catalyst and Chroma Global Ronath Mukadange. “We were so pumped, I brought Chamaru over and called Ronath to come over at 2 a.m. We started ideating on the spot,” he shared.
The result? Donely, an AI-powered assistant for Mac that sees what you see, hears what you say, and takes care of repetitive admin tasks with near-human intuition, all while keeping you in full control.
Now nearing launch, Donely has already stirred excitement across tech circles as a productivity tool that isn’t just another task manager, but one that does the tasks.
Building an AI with boundaries
From the outset, the Donely team knew that users wouldn’t just be handing over to-do lists – they’d be handing over access to their screens, microphones, and lives. That level of access demanded serious thought.
“Everything runs locally first,” Harsha stated. “Screen and audio data never leave the machine unless the user opts in for cloud processing. Most actions are logged in an activity feed with a one-click undo. If Donely messes up, you can rewind instantly.”
There’s also what he referred to as a ‘trust dial’, a spectrum of control that lets users determine how much Donely can automate. “They can start in manual-only mode, then graduate to semi-automatic, and finally hands-off once they’re comfortable,” he said. Sensitive apps like banking platforms or password managers are auto-flagged to ensure Donely stays away unless explicitly given permission.
That attention to autonomy isn’t just ethical – it’s also good design. “Zero-trust onboarding is key,” Harsha stated. “Donely starts blind and deaf. The user grants screen or mic access step by step. Raw recordings are encrypted and auto deleted after processing.”
More than a macro
One of the toughest problems the team faced was teaching Donely to interact with a chaotic digital environment the way a person would.
“Every app is different. Buttons aren’t always labelled in obvious ways,” Harsha explained. “We experimented with a lot of models to recognise what’s on screen and eventually found a combination that worked: One model to recognise what’s on screen and another to figure out what needs to happen next, even if that means breaking the task into smaller steps.”
This layered approach, perception followed by action, is what makes Donely stand out from traditional task automators. “That’s what makes Donely feel less like a macro… and more like a real assistant,” he remarked.
Risk, reversibility, and respect
When Donely identifies a potential task, whether through voice or screen, it applies a simple two-score logic to decide how to proceed.
“Every task gets a risk score and a reversibility score,” Harsha shared. “Low risk and high reversibility? Donely just does it. Anything else triggers a quick confirmation prompt with suggested next steps.”
Over time, the system adapts to the user. It learns preferences and tolerances so it can act faster on routine approvals while remaining cautious with the unknown.
This adaptive layer is especially useful for people who manage a high ‘mental load’ – a term Harsha credited to his girlfriend. “Donely is for people carrying a high mental load,” he said. “Founders, executives, product managers, people with 37 tabs open and no time to close them.”
From Google Docs to Instagram DMs
So how does Donely actually work in real life? Harsha painted a scene for us, in fact, one that directly involved this very article.
“I’m drafting this information packet on Google Docs. Mid-doc I mutter, ‘Donely, send this to Venessa when I’m done.’ Donely hears it, tags the document, and waits,” he shared. “The moment I’m done, it spots the save event, copies the link to the doc, fires up Instagram – since Donely knows I was talking to you there once – and drafts a polite note to you. It then asks me to proofread and send it off.”
It may sound like science fiction, but the team’s roadmap is grounded and specific. “This is where we’re taking Donely,” Harsha stated.
Local first, cloud when needed
Unlike most productivity tools that rely on cloud-first architecture, Donely leans heavily on local processing, and that’s intentional.
“No logins. No trackers. No clutter,” Harsha said. “We’re building a fast, focused workspace that doesn’t trade speed for surveillance.”
That doesn’t mean the cloud is entirely out of the picture. “We are building an opt-in cloud memory,” he shared. “It’ll let Donely remember preferences across devices without shipping raw data.”
It’s this kind of hybrid thinking, local by default, cloud when useful, that makes Donely feel both futuristic and grounded.
The road ahead
For now, Donely is laser-focused on delivering a flawless macOS experience. “The first milestone is a rock-solid Mac app,” Harsha confirmed. “Next comes an iOS companion app so users can approve or undo tasks from their phone.”
After that? A Windows beta to tap into a larger user base, and then deep integrations into major SaaS APIs. “Eventually, Donely won’t just simulate clicks, it’ll work directly through the API when it can, which is even faster,” he added.
As for the trio behind the product, Harsha, Chamaru, and Ronath, their chemistry seems to be a critical part of Donely’s DNA. “We’re three different kinds of thinkers,” Harsha stated. “I’m the product and UX guy, Chamaru is the AI researcher, and Ronath brings the startup execution and systems mindset.”
In a market flooded with over-engineered productivity tools, Donely’s power lies in its restraint. It doesn’t overwhelm users with dashboards or checklists – it simply watches, listens, and helps, quietly.
“Donely’s not just about saving time,” Harsha reflected. “It’s about reducing cognitive overhead, the constant ping-pong of small, distracting tasks that add up.”
With a soft launch on the horizon and an ambitious roadmap underway, Donely is poised to redefine what it means to be productive, not just organised, but actually done.
As Harsha put it: “It’s time your to-do list did the doing.”