What is SapienAI?
SapienAI is a self-hosted academic chatbot and research workspace. It unifies the latest models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and self-hosted Ollama models into a single, secure interface.
Its killer features include realtime audio chat, 100% local data storage, academic paper integration, semantic search, and dedicated research spaces for writing and organizing your work.
Note that, SapienAI is still under active development.
AI Research Chat
SapienAI provides a chat interface similar in function to ChatGPT, Claude or other genAI interfaces. You can converse with the AI models, upload images and files, and more. However, Sapien’s chat experience ticks a few boxes not found in other options.
- GPT4, o3, Claude 4, Google Gemini 2.5 Pro & Ollama: One interface to access the top publicly available generative AI models or your own self-hosted ones! You can choose which model powers a chat, including changing models mid-chat to take advantage of the different capabilities of each model.
- Realtime audio chat: Have a realtime conversation with SapienAI.
- All data is stored locally on your device: Everything fed into the app, including all messages (sent and received), images (uploaded and generated) and files, remains stored on your device.
- Model hosting flexibility. Models can be accessed directly from OpenAI, Anthropic or Google, or you can connect to these models through Azure, AWS or Google Vertex. With Ollama support, you can also now run models locally on your machine, or connect to services that utilise the same Ollama API format.
- All responses backed by actual academic papers. Reduce the risk of hallucination, improve model accuracy and have direct access to academic papers. SapienAI can undertake a search for relevant academic papers to inform each response.
- Academic focused: SapienAI is prompted to act as a non-biased and highly-intelligent academic advisor. You could think of SapienAI as a highly knowledgeable expert in all domains. With cross-chat memory and the ability to provide customised instructions SapienAI is flexible and always tailored to your needs.
- Semantic search: All uploaded documents are stored and semantically indexed, allowing you to search for content using natural language. Bonus: If you have connected your Zotero account, you can semantically search items stored there as well!
SapienAI Features!
- Chat with 10+ top AIs: OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Ollama & more, all in one window
- Talk out loud: Real-time voice chat, like a real conversation (no typing needed)
- 100% private: All your data stays on your device, no cloud, no tracking
- Answers backed by real research: Every response cites academic papers, not guesses
- Find anything instantly: Search chats, files, or even your Zotero library with plain English
- Write papers with ease: Built-in editor for Markdown, LaTeX, Typst, perfect for academics
- Keep your research in one place: Upload notes, PDFs, sources, the AI reads them all
- Auto-generate literature reviews: Turn your sources into polished Word/Excel summaries in seconds
- Works any way you want: Connect to APIs, cloud platforms, or run locally
License
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International.
