u/Fun_Statement_6108

CouncilAI right now is fully local — 4 models on your own hardware, no cloud, no accounts. Been getting consistent feedback that the audience for that specific pitch is small (people who'd want it can build it themselves with Ollama).

Considering a different direction: same routing/deliberation concept, but using your own API keys for Claude, GPT, Grok, etc. instead of local models. Same idea — route your question to the model best suited for it, or run multiple in parallel and compare — but using the frontier models you're likely already paying for instead of local ones.

This would be a genuinely different product, not an update to the current one — trades the "fully offline, nothing leaves your device" pitch for "stop manually switching between ChatGPT/Claude tabs, let routing pick the right one and compare answers when it matters."

Would this solve an actual problem for you? Genuinely trying to figure out if this is worth building or if it's solving a problem nobody has

CouncilAI right now is fully local — 4 models on your own hardware, no cloud, no accounts. Been getting consistent feedback that the audience for that specific pitch is small (people who'd want it can build it themselves with Ollama).

Considering a different direction: same routing/deliberation concept, but using your own API keys for Claude, GPT, Grok, etc. instead of local models. Same idea — route your question to the model best suited for it, or run multiple in parallel and compare — but using the frontier models you're likely already paying for instead of local ones.

This would be a genuinely different product, not an update to the current one — trades the "fully offline, nothing leaves your device" pitch for "stop manually switching between ChatGPT/Claude tabs, let routing pick the right one and compare answers when it matters."

Would this solve an actual problem for you? Genuinely trying to figure out if this is worth building or if it's solving a problem nobody has

CouncilAI right now is fully local — 4 models on your own hardware, no cloud, no accounts. Been getting consistent feedback that the audience for that specific pitch is small (people who'd want it can build it themselves with Ollama).

Considering a different direction: same routing/deliberation concept, but using your own API keys for Claude, GPT, Grok, etc. instead of local models. Same idea — route your question to the model best suited for it, or run multiple in parallel and compare — but using the frontier models you're likely already paying for instead of local ones.

This would be a genuinely different product, not an update to the current one — trades the "fully offline, nothing leaves your device" pitch for "stop manually switching between ChatGPT/Claude tabs, let routing pick the right one and compare answers when it matters."

Would this solve an actual problem for you? Genuinely trying to figure out if this is worth building or if it's solving a problem nobody has

Most local AI apps are a black box — you type, it answers, you have no idea why. CouncilAI routes your question to one of four models based on difficulty and shows you the entire decision: which model was picked, why, and in Council Mode, the full scoring breakdown between models.

You're not locked into the default models either — every role (router, easy, medium, hard) can be swapped for any Ollama model you want directly in Settings, with a built-in validate/pull button.

New in v1.2:

• Sequential Mode — one model drafts, a second critiques the reasoning, a third refines the final answer
• Compare Mode — same question through multiple models side by side
• Fully offline after setup, no accounts, no cloud, no telemetry

Demo: https://youtu.be/zxfOvviGjno
councilai.ca — $3 USD beta

Genuinely curious what would make this a "yes" for you if you were in the market for a local AI tool — not looking for generic feedback, more interested in the specific thing that would tip a "maybe" into a purchase.

https://reddit.com/link/1v5d005/video/3sidhqlft6fh1/player

Hey r/SideProject — been building CouncilAI for a while and wanted to share where it's at.

It's a Windows desktop app that runs 4 local AI models and routes your question to the right one based on complexity. Simple questions go to a fast lightweight model, complex ones trigger a deliberation where multiple models answer and the best response wins. Everything runs offline on your own hardware — no accounts, no cloud, no data leaving your machine.

Just shipped v1.2 with sequential agent mode (draft → critique → refine), compare mode, and a transparency panel showing exactly how routing decisions are made.

Still early — $3 USD beta at councilai.ca. Would love feedback from other builders here.

Hey r/SideProject — been building CouncilAI for a while and wanted to share where it's at.

It's a Windows desktop app that runs 4 local AI models and routes your question to the right one based on complexity. Simple questions go to a fast lightweight model, complex ones trigger a deliberation where multiple models answer and the best response wins. Everything runs offline on your own hardware — no accounts, no cloud, no data leaving your machine.

Just shipped v1.2 with sequential agent mode (draft → critique → refine), compare mode, and a transparency panel showing exactly how routing decisions are made.

Still early — $3 USD beta at councilai.ca. Would love feedback from other builders here.

Posted here a while back about CouncilAI. Took the feedback seriously and rebuilt several core parts. Here's what's new

Routing rework:

The router (Llama3.2:1b) now only classifies difficulty — it never generates a response. Previous version had it answering trivial questions which caused hallucinations since 1B models aren't reliable for generation. 4-model pipeline now:

Llama3.2:1b → classify only

Gemma2:2b → trivial/easy

Phi3:mini → medium

Mistral → hard/complex

Sequential Agent Mode:

Gemma2 drafts → Phi3 critiques the reasoning → Mistral refines into final answer. Each stage receives the previous stage's output as context.

Compare Mode:

Same question, all three responders in parallel, no scoring. Side by side with word count and an agreement indicator showing whether models converged or diverged.

Web Search:

DuckDuckGo context injection via the ddgs library. No API key, fits the offline-first ethos — internet only used when you toggle it on. Results injected as context before the model sees your question.

All built on Ollama with the binary bundled — no separate install needed.

$3 USD beta — councilai.ca

Hey r/localLLM — just released the beta of something I've been building for a while and wanted to share it here.

CouncilAI is a Windows desktop app built on Ollama that uses a multi-model deliberation system:

A small Qwen router classifies your question's difficulty

Easy questions get routed to a fast lightweight model

Hard questions trigger Council Mode — Gemma and Mistral both answer in parallel, then a tournament-style scoring system picks the strongest response

The idea was to get better answers by not relying on a single model's output.

Technical details:

Bundles Ollama directly — no separate install needed

Hardware detection on first launch picks the right model sizes for your RAM/VRAM

Models stored in %LOCALAPPDATA%\CouncilAI\models

Built with Python/PySide6

Privacy: fully offline after initial model download. No accounts, no telemetry, nothing leaving your machine.

It's $3 USD in beta — I wanted real users before charging full price. Beta buyers keep the $3 permanently when it goes to $7.99 at full release.

SmartScreen will warn you on install since I don't have code signing yet — click "More info" → "Run anyway". Working on getting that sorted.

councilai.ca

Happy to answer any questions about the routing logic, model selection algorithm, or anything else technical.