The popular open-source data science platform provider Anaconda Inc. said today it’s bringing the power of advanced large language models to desktop computers with the launch of AI Navigator.
It’s a new desktop application that enables users to run a selection of LLMs for artificial intelligence applications locally on their laptop or personal computer, without sending any data to a cloud server.
Anaconda is best known as a data science platform. It offers a distribution of open-source programing and data science tools for the Python and R coding languages. Its main advantage is that it simplifies package management and deployment, providing a comprehensive set of libraries and software for data science, machine learning and scientific computing projects.
With AI Navigator, Anaconda says, it’s trying to address the challenges of AI security. One of the main problems businesses have with using proprietary AI services offered by big companies like OpenAI and Google is that they can’t trust them, as they don’t know what kinds of data those AI models might extract from their systems. AI developers are notorious for their habit of slurping on user’s data for training purposes, for example, and that presents an unacceptable risk for many users.
AI Navigator eliminates this risk by allowing users to download a curated selection of more than pretrained 200 LLMs, tailored for various different tasks and device capabilities. It provides a more secure and efficient way for safety-conscious organizations and individual users to start exploring what AI can do. By running LLMs directly on a laptop or PC, users can rest assured that their data will always stay there.
Included in Anaconda’s curated library of more than 200 models are more than 50 unique LLMs developed especially for the AI Navigator app, spread across four quantization levels to support a diverse range of hardware configurations. As a result, private, locally run LLMs are now accessible to every kind of user, no matter if they’re using a high-powered laptop equipped with blazing-fast graphics processing units, or a much older machine.
Anaconda explains that the models will be run locally in a secure environment that’s created on the user’s PC, ensuring that any sensitive data it accesses will always remain on the computer. This makes it a great choice for companies concerned with data privacy, compliance and the cost of cloud computing, Anaconda says.
Moreover, Anaconda says it makes it easy to get started experimenting with AI thanks to its simplified user interface, which is designed so that even nontechnical users will feel comfortable as they browse through the various models on offer. It also offers flexible deployment options, with an integrated chat portal for less technical users, and application programming interfaces for those with more skills.
The company said the launch of AI Navigator is a key step as it aims to build an “operating system for AI” consisting of the tools and infrastructure needed to make the technology more accessible and manageable in every industry.
“Just as we democratized Python and data science to more than 45 million users, we’re now empowering individuals and organizations to harness the full potential of enterprise-ready AI,” said Anaconda Chief AI and Innovation Officer Peter Wang. “As the foundation of Anaconda’s OS for AI, AI Navigator ensures AI development is accessible, scalable and secure for all.”
The company believes AI Navigator can also be the foundation of so-called “agentic AI,” which is the name for AI models that can carry out various tasks on behalf of their users. Using AI Navigator, companies will be able to build AI agents for financial services use-cases like market analysis, automated risk assessments and real-time decision making, as well as healthcare applications for personalized treatment plans, assisting in diagnoses and more.
According to Anaconda, there was a lot of interest in AI Navigator while the app was still in beta, especially for AI models that can generate and debug code. The company said it has already accumulated more than 10,000 users ahead of its launch in general availability today.
In a future update that’s expected to come next year, Anaconda will make it possible for AI Navigator users to create their own AI agents, and make them available for anyone else to download and use locally on their PC or laptop.
“AI Navigator is just the beginning,” said Anaconda Vice President of Product Steve Croce. “We’re not only simplifying model access and management, but laying the groundwork for a comprehensive ecosystem where users can build, govern and deploy AI agents seamlessly.”