Visual Guidance is an AI-powered pointing layer built into Guided Journey.
It lets editors tag a phrase in their instructions with a “Show me” cue, and lets participants click that cue to get an on-screen highlight of the exact UI element on their VM, replicating the “over-the-shoulder” guidance of a live instructor.
When a participant is stuck looking for “the Save button” or “the terminal,” one click shows them exactly where it is on their own screen, so they spend less time searching and more time learning.
How It Works
When a participant clicks a tagged phrase, CloudShare captures a real-time screenshot of their active VM and sends it, together with the tagged text, to an AI model. The model locates the referenced UI element and CloudShare draws a pulsing highlight over it directly on the VM viewport.
Adding “Show me” Tags in the Editor
Visual Guidance tags are added to Guided Journey section text from the same rich text toolbar used for bold, italics, and other formatting. For more on creating and managing sections, see Guided Journey.
To tag a phrase
- Open the experience’s Guided Journey editor and select the section you want to edit.
- Highlight the phrase that describes the UI element participants need to find (for example, the settings button).
- Click the Visual Guidance icon in the text toolbar.
| Note: The Visual Guidance icon is disabled if your selection is too short or too long. Select a single word or short phrase. |
Tagged text appears with a highlighted outline and underline, showing that the tag is active.
Participants see a similar styling when the tag renders in the Viewer.
First-use disclosure
The first time you apply a “Show me” tag, a one-time dialog explains how Visual Guidance works:
| Note: Select “Don’t Show This Again” to skip this dialog on future tags. |
Removing or replacing a tag
To remove a tag, select the already-tagged text and click the Visual Guidance icon again. Each tag is managed independently, selecting different text and applying a new tag does not remove any existing tags in the section.
Multiple tags per section
There’s no limit to the number of “Show me” tags in a section. Each tag triggers independently at runtime.
The Participant Experience in the Viewer
In subscriptions where Visual Guidance is enabled, tagged phrases in the Guided Journey panel are visually distinct so participants know they can interact with them.
Hovering over tagged text
Hovering over a tagged phrase reveals a “Show me” button next to the text.
Clicking “Show me”
Clicking the tagged text or the “Show me” button sends a request based on the participant’s current VM screen. A “Locating element…” indicator appears while CloudShare looks for the element. Participants can keep working in the VM during this time.
Success: the highlight
When the element is found, a pulsing highlight appears over it directly on the VM viewport for a few seconds, then fades out automatically. Participants can hover the tagged text again at any time to re-trigger it.
When the element can’t be found
If the AI can’t locate the described element, on screen or after a timeout, no highlight is drawn and a message appears instead:
| Note: This can happen if the participant is on a different screen or VM than the one the instructions refer to. Participants can dismiss the message and try again once they’re on the right screen. |
Managing Visual Guidance
Visual Guidance is on by default for all accounts.
Account managers can turn it off at any time, without contacting CloudShare:
- Open the Subscription Details page.
- In the AI Integrations section, click the edit icon.
- Clear the Visual Guidance checkbox and click Apply.
While it's turned off, tagged text renders as plain, non-interactive text for participants: no button, no highlight, no request is sent.
To turn it back on, select the checkbox again and click Apply.
| Note: This setting applies to the entire subscription. It affects every project, class, and user under it, and takes effect immediately. Visual Guidance cannot be turned on or off for individual projects, experiences, or users. |
Privacy
Triggering a “Show me” cue sends a screenshot of the participant’s active VM to CloudShare’s AI service to identify the referenced element. These screenshots are not used to train AI models.
Limitations
- AI detection may occasionally be inaccurate.
- Visual Guidance points to elements on the participant’s active VM only. It can’t highlight elements on other VMs in a multi-VM environment.
- Each click sends a fresh request, results aren’t cached, so re-clicking always re-checks the current screen.
- Best suited for visual UI elements (buttons, fields, icons); not intended for locating text inside a terminal or command-line window.
- Selections that are too short or too long can’t be tagged in the Editor.