I’ve been using Ai over the last few months, especially for coding, but the thing that’s always bothered me is having to rely on an external service for my workflow. If the internet goes down, you’re unable to work.
Luckily, running a model locally has been getting cheaper and easier. Google’s Gemma 4 release inspired me to roll up my sleeves and create my own local Ai Buddy. Gemma 4 is a family of open-weight models, with specific models tuned for use on mobile and normal consumer laptops.
It took me about 2 weeks of maxing out Claude’s Pro plan ($20/mo) to get me to the point where it’s useful to me on a day-to-day basis. Download to check it out yourself (MacOS 26+) or read below for the features.
Chat Interface
Of course I went with the familiar chat interface all the LLMs are doing lately. I also added a little character but I’ve been told it’s not very cute.
Quick-Activate Editing and Summary
By highlighting text and pressing ⌥+Space you can have your Ai buddy edit or summarize text for you.
Meeting Transcription
I spent far too long aiming to recreate completely local transcription for any/all e-conferences. OpenWhispr does the same thing, but I think my interface is easier to use!
Not only does it transcribe audio from ANY app (Discord, Zoom, gMeet, whatever else) relatively reliably, it also diarizes (ie. identifies speakers) and summarizes.
Memory
Something many harnesses like Hermes and OpenClaw use is memory. Want a princess as your buddy? Want to change the default location of your meeting minutes? Just ask in chat, and the buddy will remember.
What’s Next?
After a bit of work I’ve got a relatively useful meeting transcriber. Here are some other things I might add later:
- Ability to navigate through settings screens for you to do what you need (mainly so my dad doesn’t have to call me for tech support)
- Read, summarize, and prioritize your emails (to avoid this task in the morning)
- Extract and classify expenses from images, pdfs, and other receipts
- Scheduled tasks
- Cuter/configurable character
Ultimately I’m doing this as a learning experience on harnesses, which I believe are going to be pretty important in the mid-term. Whether or not I work on the above will be a matter of inspiration.