Apple has brought Visual Intelligence to Mac with the macOS Golden Gate beta, eliminating the workaround of photographing screens to use the iPhone version. The feature uses Shift-Command-6 as its keyboard shortcut, extending the familiar screenshot command sequence that started with Shift-Command-3 and Shift-Command-4.

Sebastien Marineau-Mes, Apple's vice president of Intelligent System Experience Engineering, announced the feature at WWDC 2026, though he provided minimal details about implementation. Users can drag over screen regions or select windows to analyze images, with options appearing as popouts around the capture area.

When working correctly, Visual Intelligence can identify food items and provide nutrition summaries ranging from Very Low to Very High, listing protein, grains, fat type, sodium, and processing levels. However, the feature struggles with recognition accuracy and sometimes fails to identify food at all.

Testing reveals significant limitations: results vary wildly between identical images, the nutrition information cannot be copied, and Image Search currently redirects to Google but doesn't function properly. While frustrating in its beta state, the integration represents Apple's push to bring iOS intelligence features to macOS.