Configuring Ollama and Cloud Models in Prism AI: A Local-First Approach

One of the core design goals of Prism AI was to avoid locking users into a single proprietary cloud backend. Whether you want absolute privacy via local models or high-throughput generation via cloud APIs, flexibility is paramount.

Here is how Prism AI handles model configuration across local and cloud environments.

Local Inference with Ollama

By integrating directly with Ollama, Prism AI allows you to run open-weight models locally on your Windows machine:

ollama run llama3

Once Ollama is active on http://localhost:11434, Prism Chat detects available local models automatically, letting you switch between models instantly without restarting your workspace.

Cloud API Fallbacks

When local hardware constraints require heavier reasoning, Prism AI supports pluggable cloud endpoints with zero friction.

Learn more in the Prism AI Repository.

Discussion Question: What local model sizes (e.g., 8B, 70B quantized) do you find most practical for daily research tasks?