Cluely Helped You Cheat, Truely Knows You Did

Chungin “Roy” Lee wants to put a chip in your brain so you can cheat better.

Yes, that’s not a punchline. It’s the stated “endgame” of Cluely, Lee’s viral AI startup that proudly proclaims its mission is to help users “cheat on everything” from LeetCode interviews to exams and sales calls. As anti-cheating startups scramble to counter it and internet critics pile on, Cluely is leaning into the controversy with the kind of defiant bravado usually reserved for rogue crypto bros or banned Twitch streamers.

“People are literally building companies to try and shut down Cluely LOL,” Lee wrote on LinkedIn, brushing off the backlash like it was a badge of honor. “Give us a try and drown us in criticism; we’re only getting better.”

But not everyone is laughing. Industry peers, security experts, and even fellow AI enthusiasts are calling Cluely not just unethical but dangerous.

The Business of Cheating

Cluely first gained notoriety when Lee, previously suspended by Columbia University for building and using a LeetCode interview cheating tool returned with $5 million in funding and a far more audacious product. At its core, Cluely is a covert in-browser AI assistant that scans what’s on your screen and quietly feeds you context-aware answers in real time. Think ChatGPT, but weaponized specifically for deception.

As journalist Lee Chong Ming of Business Insider described after testing the app, “It only works with what’s already on my screen it doesn’t crawl the internet like ChatGPT. It also reads everything.”

The app doesn’t stop at job interviews. Earlier versions of Cluely’s manifesto boldly encouraged cheating on exams and even government certification tests. But after scrutiny intensified, those references mysteriously disappeared. Now the platform only promotes “cheating” in business settings like meetings and sales calls.  

“We’re redefining our messaging to target the largest and most impactful markets,” Lee told TechCrunch, adding, “Ultimately, we see a future where everyone uses AI to its utmost potential.”

Cluely’s viral growth has sparked a cottage industry of countermeasures. San Francisco-based Validia launched Truely, a free downloadable tool that alerts recruiters if Cluely or similar AI assistants are active on a candidate’s machine. Within days, it began gaining traction on Product Hunt and developer forums.

“This isn’t about rejecting AI,” said Validia’s Paul Vann, who uses AI tools in his own workflow. “It’s about rejecting dishonest AI. Tech interviews need to evolve but not like this. Let’s not trade bad interviews for dishonest ones.”

Unlike traditional proctoring software, Truely doesn’t require admin privileges or invasive surveillance. Instead, it flags suspicious background processes and triggers real-time alerts for interviewers. Vann says it’s just the beginning of a broader mission to combat “AI-driven threats” to professional integrity.

Rhode Island-based Proctaroo, another anti-cheating platform, also claims it can catch Cluely users.

“When a Proctaroo session is active, we can see running applications and ‘hidden’ background processes — Cluely is no different,” said CEO Adrian Aamodt, who condemned Cluely’s business model as “unethical.”

Doubling Down on the Absurd

Criticism has done little to slow Lee down. In fact, he appears to thrive on it.

In his most eyebrow-raising move yet, Lee claims Cluely is already eyeing a hardware pivot to outpace detection software altogether. Among the proposed ideas: smart glasses, transparent glass screen overlays, AI-powered necklaces, and yes, even brain chips.

“Whether it’s smart glasses, a transparent glass screen overlay, a recording necklace, or even a brain chip, we’re not sure,” Lee told TechCrunch. “But we’re prepared to develop them.”

He went further in his ambitions, saying, “The ultimate end state of Cluely is a chip inside your brain that lets you use AGI to think.”

It’s a grand claim, made even more audacious by the fact that industry veterans including Elon Musk’s Neuralink have struggled with brain-computer interfaces for years. While Neuralink recently implanted its first human chip featuring 1,024 electrodes, it’s a heavily regulated and medically intensive process.

Lee, unbothered, dismissed these challenges. “Expanding to hardware is quite trivial technologically,” he said.

That kind of statement, in an industry littered with failed hardware dreams — from the disastrous Humane AI Pin to the endless graveyard of vaporware wearables — feels less like confidence and more like bluster.

Cheating as a Service?

What’s perhaps most jarring about Cluely isn’t the technology but the ethos.

The startup isn’t shy about its intentions. Its early tagline was “We want to cheat on everything.” And while the public-facing site has walked that back slightly, Cluely’s marketing remains infused with a sort of performative rebellion: a challenge to the norms of hiring, assessment, and even ethics itself.

But in a time when trust in remote work, online education, and digital hiring is already under pressure, Cluely’s flagrant disregard for basic professional honesty is corrosive. It’s one thing to build tools that assist with learning or job prep. It’s another to mask automation behind the facade of human performance.

Validia’s Paul Vann summed it up best: “This isn’t about helping people thrive with AI. It’s about helping them lie with AI. And we’re not going to pretend that’s okay.”