MacPaw partners with Liquid AI to run its AI assistant on devices

In short: MacPaw is working with Liquid AI to make a version of its Eney assistant that can run directly on a user’s device, and it plans to offer the same approach to developers building apps for SetApp.

What happened

MacPaw, a Ukraine-based app maker, said it has partnered with Liquid AI to power its products with AI that runs locally on a device. This is often called on-device inference, which means the app processes requests on your computer or phone instead of sending them to a company’s servers (like doing the work in your own kitchen instead of ordering takeout).

MacPaw is building a locally hosted version of its AI assistant, Eney, which it first revealed last year. To do that, Liquid AI is helping build an on-device system called Elix, plus a local memory system that can store helpful context on the device.

MacPaw CEO Oleksandr Kosovan told TechCrunch that local models could let users run assistants and “agentic workflows” offline. In plain terms, that means the assistant could still do multi-step tasks even when you do not have an internet connection.

MacPaw also said it is preparing SetApp, its subscription app store with more than 150,000 paying users, for more AI-focused apps. One idea it is already testing is credit-based pricing, where users get a set number of AI actions based on how complex a task is.

Why it matters

Running AI on your own device can improve privacy because less data needs to be sent out over the internet. It can also make some features work when Wi-Fi is slow or unavailable, which is useful for travel, remote work, and people who prefer to keep sensitive information on their own machine.

Source: TechCrunch AI