This paper introduces Pointer Assistant, an LLM-powered chatbot designed as a visual pointer alongside the user's mouse cursor to proactively assist with on-screen tasks. A study with 220 participants performing a financial budget planning task showed that the pointer-based, proactive design reduced task load, improved satisfaction, and increased the number of ideas generated compared to a traditional chat log interface. While participants found the assistant fun and helpful, feedback suggests improvements to its assertiveness could further enhance the user experience of human-AI collaboration.
