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April 2026: Bankai Voice, Command Palette, Deep Research, and Workspace Search

· 11 min read
The Copera Team
The Copera Team
Product Team

Remember last month, when we said we were building something big for Copera's first birthday? This is it. Bankai, your new voice superpower, is officially here — along with a completely rewritten Command Palette, a second-generation Deep Research experience, a brand-new global workspace search, Gantt charts for Boards, and Super Copera Email AI that actually learns from how you work. And yes, we still squashed 60+ bugs along the way.

This is the biggest release we've ever shipped. Here's everything new in April.

New: Bankai — Your Voice Superpower​

Most people speak at 150 words per minute but type at 40. Bankai closes that gap. Hold a key anywhere on your computer, speak naturally, and Bankai handles the rest — whether that means dropping formatted text at your cursor, answering a question with AI, navigating Copera hands-free, or having a full spoken conversation.

Bankai is available in the Copera Desktop App and operates in five modes:

  • Omni (default) — Just talk. Bankai figures out whether you're dictating, asking a question, or issuing a command
  • Dictation — Your speech becomes polished, formatted text at the cursor — works anywhere in Copera and anywhere else on your computer
  • Ask — Ask a question by voice, receive an AI answer pasted inline
  • Commands — Navigate Copera with your voice: "go to general", "join the huddle", "toggle zen mode"
  • Chat — A walkie-talkie conversation with AI, complete with spoken responses

Interactive training wizard — Enable Bankai from your profile menu and you'll walk through a hands-on onboarding: a typing-speed challenge, a voice-speed comparison that shows your real multiplier, and guided practice through each mode. You earn your Bankai.

Personal stats — See your words spoken, time saved, sessions, streaks, and mode breakdown on the Bankai History page. Milestone celebrations fire at 1,000 / 10,000 / 50,000 words and at your first hour saved.

Your settings, your way — Fully customizable keyboard shortcuts (platform-aware: Ctrl+Win on Windows, Fn on Mac), per-user custom vocabulary so your unique terms transcribe correctly, microphone selection, and a clipboard toggle. Full language support — dictate in English, Portuguese, or Spanish and Bankai responds in kind.

Learn about Bankai | Voice Modes | Keyboard Shortcuts | Tips & Best Practices

New: Command Palette — Completely Rewritten​

The Command Palette has been rebuilt from the ground up as the universal action surface for both keyboard users and Bankai voice. Press Ctrl+K (or Cmd+K) from anywhere and:

  • Single-character shortcuts — @ for people, # for channels, / for commands, ! for actions, $ for boards, & for docs, ? for help — each prefix filters the palette instantly
  • Pre-expanded entities — When you search, Copera shows real, specific actions ("Join the Product Huddle") instead of abstract commands ("join")
  • 91 available commands — Navigate anywhere, create anything, run any action — without touching the mouse
  • Voice-powered — Every command is available to Bankai Command Mode, so you can dispatch them by speaking

Under the hood, the palette now searches everything in your workspace — channels, people, boards, documents, tasks, transcriptions, AI chats, and more — with full access control so you only ever see what you're allowed to.

Learn about Command Palette | Quick Navigation

A brand-new, lightning-fast workspace search that covers everything: channels, messages, inboxes, documents, boards, tasks, files, people, voice transcriptions, and AI chats. All in one place, all respecting your permissions.

Open it from the top bar or through the Command Palette. Search once, find anything. This also powers Bankai's "Ask" mode when it needs to pull context from your workspace — so asking "what did Maria say about the Q3 launch?" actually works.

Improved: Ask Copera AI — Deep Research 2.0​

Deep Research got a major UX upgrade, plus a brand-new completion experience:

  • Research plan card — When a question warrants deep research (or when you click the Research chip), Copera AI shows you a plan first: an AI-generated title, editable sub-questions you can add to or remove, and a depth selector
  • Three depth tiers — Choose Standard (quick), Deep (thorough), or Very Deep (exhaustive, with recursive follow-up research)
  • 60-second auto-start countdown — The plan launches on its own if you don't touch it, with a ring animation that pauses when you edit
  • Cancel anytime — Don't want to wait? One click dismisses the research and switches back to a regular AI answer
  • Completion notifications — Switch tabs while a research runs. You'll get a bell notification, a desktop push, and a mobile push when it's done
  • Completion stats — Every finished research now shows "Research completed in X minutes · Y citations · Z searches" — at-a-glance context for how deep the investigation went
  • Image generation polish — Generated images now open in a lightbox with a download button, and you'll see a clean skeleton while they render

The whole Deep Research experience is significantly faster, cheaper, and smarter under the hood — so we can give it to you with no wait, no limits, no nonsense.

Learn about Deep Research | Image Generation

Improved: Super Copera Email — AI That Learns from You​

Our Inbox AI took a huge leap forward. The spam filter, the auto-trash, and the AI drafts all got smarter, and your Inbox now finally feels like it understands you.

  • Smarter spam detection — The spam guard now weighs seven different signals before deciding (sender reputation, domain reputation, your correction history, prior correspondence, full email content, Reply-To analysis, and more). It's much harder to fool, and much gentler on legitimate mail
  • Auto-trash that learns — Trash 2+ emails from the same sender and future emails from them are automatically trashed — no waiting for AI to figure it out. Rescue an email and that sender is permanently protected. Your actions teach the system directly
  • Smarter AI drafts — Auto-drafts now see the full thread context and your actual name (not your email address). A new "steering" field lets you refine the draft by typing or dictating instructions like "make it warmer" or "don't mention the meeting" — then Regenerate
  • Gmail-style Archived folder — A proper Archive tab between Spam and Trash, with hover actions and bulk archive
  • Per-user notification modes — For shared inboxes, each member now chooses their own preference: All / Important Only / Needs Reply Only / Muted. Your teammate's inbox settings don't force yours
  • Thread summaries on 2+ emails — Previously required 3 emails; now a 2-email back-and-forth gets a summary too
  • Mark as unread closes the thread — Like Gmail — mark unread and you're back to the inbox list, not stuck on the thread
  • Mobile push notifications — New inbox emails now push to your phone, and anything you read on mobile clears on web (and vice versa)
  • Deep-linked notifications — Click an email notification and you land directly on the thread, with the specific email scrolled into view and highlighted

If you haven't turned on Super Copera Email yet, now's the time.

Learn about Inbox AI | Managing Emails

New: Gantt View for Boards​

Boards got a proper Gantt chart — the one you've been asking for:

  • Canvas-rendered timeline — Smooth scrolling and zooming even on boards with thousands of tasks
  • Drag to schedule — Move tasks, resize durations, and drag a connector dot between two tasks to create a dependency
  • All four dependency types — Finish-to-Start, Start-to-Start, Finish-to-Finish, and Start-to-Finish, each with optional lag/lead
  • Live date propagation — Drag a task and watch its dependents cascade in real time
  • Critical path highlighting — Instantly see which tasks are driving the project's end date
  • Milestones, progress bars, today line, and weekend shading — All the polish a real Gantt needs
  • Export to PNG or PDF — Share your plan with anyone, dependency arrows included
  • Full keyboard navigation — Arrow keys, bulk select, and screen-reader support

Gantt View | Boards Overview

New: Highlight — Draw on Your Screen​

A new annotation tool inside the Copera Desktop App: Highlight lets you draw directly on your screen anywhere on your computer — perfect for presentations, screen shares, tutorials, or just pointing at things during a meeting. A global overlay you can summon from anywhere, with drawing tools, text, and markers.

Learn about Highlight

Improved: Virtual Office​

Virtual Office got significant polish:

  • Real room audio isolation — Walk into Room A and you genuinely stop hearing Room B. No more audio leakage between rooms
  • Screen share scoping — Screen shares stay inside the room they were started in — no more surprise sharing across the whole office
  • Guest admission done right — When a guest knocks on a locked room, they're actually isolated until a member admits them. No hearing the room's audio while waiting
  • Position persistence — Walk somewhere, refresh, and you spawn right back where you were — not at the lobby center
  • Smart guest spawning — Multiple guests joining the same room now spread out automatically instead of piling up on the same spot
  • Waiting guest badges — Pulsing badges on rooms with pending knocks, visible from anywhere on the map. Click to jump to the room
  • Invite from huddle view — A new "Invite Guest" button in the huddle header

Virtual Office

New: Copera Community — Single Sign-On​

If you've signed up for the Copera Community, you can now jump straight in from your workspace — no extra login needed. One click, you're there.

New: Developer Platform — Public APIs​

We're opening Copera up more for developers:

  • Public Drive API — A new /public/v1/drive endpoint set (tree navigation, search, file metadata, download URLs, multipart upload, folder creation) authenticated via Personal Access Tokens
  • Public Search API — Programmatic access to the new global workspace search via your PAT
  • Public Board API extensions — Update and delete table row endpoints, plus update row description endpoint
  • Developer Mode "Copy ID" — Right-click any file, folder, or breadcrumb in Drive to grab its ID for API calls
  • PAT permissions expanded — Personal Access Tokens now support Drive access, with a refreshed token management UI

Developer Docs

Improved: Board Automations​

  • Add value automations — New action lets automations append values to status, dropdown, and other multi-value columns (not just overwrite them)
  • Automation column link fixes — Column references in automation rules now stay in sync when columns are renamed or moved

Learn about Boards

Improved: Everything Else​

A few more changes worth mentioning:

  • Forwarded and slow-loading emails render cleanly — Marketing emails with many tracker pixels no longer take 30-60 seconds to appear, and Gmail-forwarded emails now show their actual content instead of a one-line header
  • Portuguese transcription summaries — AI summaries of voice meeting transcriptions are now in the language of the transcription, not the request
  • Email signatures preserved — Outgoing replies keep your signature formatting correctly
  • Faster retries everywhere — The app recovers gracefully from temporary network hiccups instead of failing
  • Locale sync in desktop — The Copera Desktop App now follows your web language preference automatically

Under the Hood​

  • 60+ bug fixes across Inbox, Boards, AI, Bankai, Virtual Office, Command Palette, Notifications, and more
  • Performance improvements — Faster email rendering, smarter caching across the board, and smoother animations in heavy views like Gantt
  • Better error handling — The app now distinguishes between "please wait and retry" and "you need to sign in again" — fewer cryptic errors, faster recovery

Happy First Birthday, Copera​

On April 28, Copera turns one year old. What started as an idea about building a better place to work has become a platform used by thousands of teams — and everything you see in this newsletter is the result of a year of listening, iterating, and shipping.

Thank you for being part of this. Thank you for the bug reports, the feature requests, the screenshots at 2 AM, the "hey, what if..." messages, and the patience when things weren't ready yet. None of this exists without you.

There's a lot more coming. But for today — take Bankai for a spin. Try the new Command Palette. Ask Copera AI to research something you care about. See what you can build in an hour that used to take you an afternoon.

Happy birthday, Copera.

— The Copera Team