What Local AI Is

Local AI means running AI models on your computer, in your browser, or on hardware you control and own. The model operates locally. Your inputs never reach an external server. Your conversations are not retained by any third party. Your data never crosses a network boundary to a service you don't control. What you type stays on your machine.

The practical setup: you download an AI model (or a framework to run models), run it on your computer, and interact with it through a local interface. Open-source models like Llama, Mistral, and others can be run locally using software like Ollama, LM Studio, or similar tools. The model runs on your hardware. Your data stays local. You have complete control.

Some AI can also run in the browser directly (no server required), so the data never leaves your device at all. As AI models have improved, the quality and capability of models you can run locally has reached the point where they're genuinely useful for professional work.