Desktop AI comes to the main ambientChat app — an Alpha, answered by a model on your own Mac. Every answer now shows what it's doing while it works and leaves a receipt of what it used. Shared shopping lists go live for the whole household, notes keep their history, and Settings becomes Control.

Which models answer, how answers are prepared, Desktop AI, alerts and sharing change for everyone on the day 0.14.13 is released, on the iPhone and the web alike. What the iPhone app draws — the progress line, the receipt, Control, note versions and live lists — arrives on the phone with the 0.14.13 update from the App Store. The web interface (app.ambientchat.ai) has its parts from release day.

#What It Does

#Desktop AI, now in the main app (Alpha)

Desktop AI answers your questions with a model running on your own Mac instead of a cloud service. You ask from your phone or the web as usual; ambientChat gathers what the question needs and passes it, through a secure relay, to your Mac, which writes the answer. Answers from your Mac use no credits.

It's an Alpha, by invitation. If your account is in the alpha, Desktop AI is already on — Control → Desktop AI says so and walks you through setting up your Mac. It needs a Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or newer), at least 24 GB of memory and about 20 GB of free disk. Answers can be slower than the cloud models, and it will change as we work on it. On our test Mac a typical question takes about 3.5–5 seconds to the first word and 10–12 seconds to finish; long questions take longer.

  • ambientChat Desktop AI is the Mac app for the main app, built with each release. The development app's is now ambientChat Desktop AI Dev; only one answers at a time on a Mac.
  • On the iPhone, Control → Desktop AI explains what you need and has Email me the setup link, so you can open it on your Mac. An Alpha tag marks Desktop AI wherever it appears.
  • Long answers are no longer cut off. Chat now waits up to three minutes for your Mac, instead of one, and if it still runs out of time it says your Mac is still working on it — not that the connection is down.
  • "Yes" keeps the thread. Replying with one word to a question the AI asked you now carries the conversation on.
  • Quicker after a pause. Your Mac keeps the opening of your chat ready in memory, so the first question after a quiet spell doesn't start from scratch.
  • Shorter answers with cards. Desktop AI names each thing once, says only what you asked, and shows item cards for the things it linked.

#Every answer shows its working

  • A progress line instead of a spinner. While an answer is prepared, one line says what's happening: Gathering your context: 1,387 items, 3 documents, Study, then any lookup, then Writing…. With Desktop AI, Your Mac is reading your context comes with a bar that fills — or Already remembered most of this when your Mac still holds it from the last question. A step only appears if it lasts more than a moment.
  • A receipt under each answer — for example "Used 1,387 items · 3 documents · Study · on your Mac · 9.8s": what of your context it used, where it ran and how long it took. Tap it for the documents it read and the detailed numbers. It's saved with the answer, so it's there when you reopen the conversation and in Q&A.
  • Answers on every model are prepared a little sooner: ambientChat now checks your connected AI apps while it gathers your context, not afterwards, and the service behind that check stays running so a question never waits for it to start.

#Shared lists, live

Share a list with Can edit and your household shops from the same list — everyone can tick, add and remove.

  • A change appears on every open copy within about a second, on the phone and the web.
  • See who's on the list: faces at the top, a mark in each person's colour on the line they're on, and a Live dot.
  • Lines say "Added by Kathy" and "Ticked by Dave".
  • When someone's AI app changes the list — Dave asks Grok to add bread — the line lights up, a bar says "Dave via Grok added Bread" with Undo, and every change is kept for 30 days. Ask any connected AI "what changed on the list?" or "undo that". ⋯ → Undo my last change to this list takes back your own.
  • Ask an AI to tick many items at once — "check everything off except the wine".
  • Typing [ ] milk makes a checkbox, and the formatting bar has a checkbox button.

#Notes keep their history

  • Tap a note's V tag to see every saved version (at least 50, or 90 days), each naming who wrote it — "Steve, via Grok" when an AI app made the change. Read one, or Save as new document.
  • Notes shared with you have their history too. Tap the V tag on a note someone shared with you to find an earlier save and keep a copy in your own documents.
  • Every document shows where it's filed — a clickable folder path under its title, with Move… beside it.
  • One formatting bar on the phone and the web, headings first; the phone gains Link.

#Models

  • Gemini 4 Argon replaces Gemini 3.1 Pro, at a lower output price for now; from 1 December 2026 Google doubles Argon's prices.
  • GPT-6.1 Sol replaces GPT-6 Sol; GPT-5.6 Terra is retired.
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash replaces Gemini 3.7 Flash. It costs half as much until 31 December 2026; from 1 January 2027 Google doubles its price, back to what 3.7 Flash costs today.
  • If you had picked a replaced model, you move to its successor automatically.
  • After you switch model, the new one credits the earlier answer to the model that wrote it.

#Control, alerts and privacy

  • Settings is now called Control, on the phone and the web. Old web links to /settings still work.
  • AI-access alerts say what happened — "Grok created 'Website Brainstorm' in Product › Marketing". Tapping one opens Context Sharing at that app.
  • Send me a test alert checks that alerts reach each of your devices; Hide document names in alerts leaves the names out. Notify when accessed now saves, and with the updated iPhone app a Focus mode no longer holds alerts back.
  • A Security card for every password account sends a reset to the right email, and on the iPhone you can now change your password there (Control → Profile Information → Security) if you know your current one.
  • If you've registered a Bluetooth tag, the iPhone now records a short summary of each visit to a zone (which zone, when, how long) and uploads it, kept for 90 days — groundwork for telling you which zone a tag is in. Nothing new shows yet.

#Sharing

  • Shares name people, not just email addresses, when sent and under Recent.
  • Delete something you shared and it leaves its recipients' Shared with me and your Sharing screen; opening it says who deleted it. Restoring it brings it all back.
  • An expired public link offers Create link for a fresh one.
  • A shared conversation shows a picture of itself when posted on X.
  • A wide table in an answer reads on a phone, one card per row, and long links wrap instead of being cut off.
  • A shared spreadsheet with many columns keeps each row's name in view as you swipe across it on a phone.

#Smaller things

  • A complete answer no longer ends with "I wasn't able to produce an answer".
  • Files and photos from earlier in a conversation are still known on later questions.
  • Ask chat how ambientChat works and it finds the passage in these guides.
  • Sort by Artist / Brand in Inventory; album cover lookups say what they're doing.
  • Moving several documents never stops part-way.
  • Find in a note reaches words inside wide tables, on a phone and on a wide screen.
  • On the iPhone, an item's product passport shows the same card as on the web, with links to the product's information, sustainability, traceability and certification pages and Open in browser. An item someone shares with you shows its full passport too.
  • An item's picture is the same everywhere — folders, lists, Trash, the photo gallery and Ask AI about this item.
  • Image Studio shows shapes, vendor logos and prices as $×N, and its paperclip introduces itself once, on the phone and on the web.
  • Download on a backup always gets your backup.
  • On the web: click a picture for full screen with zoom; dialogs close when you leave their screen; shared document tiles say Can view / Can edit; Image Studio fits a phone or tablet browser.

#How to Use It

To see what an answer used: tap the receipt line under it.

To set up Desktop AI: if your account is in the alpha, open Control → Desktop AI on the phone, tap Email me the setup link, and open the link on your Mac.

To share a list for shopping together: share it with Can edit.

To see a note's earlier versions: open the note and tap its V tag.

To check your alerts work: Control → myAI Context Sharing on the iPhone (Context Sharing on the web) → Send me a test alert.

#Tips & Tricks

  • The receipt is a quick way to see whether an answer really looked at the document you meant.
  • On a shared list, ask your AI "what changed on the list?" before you shop.
  • If an AI app rewrote a note in a way you don't like, open its versions and save the old one as its own document.

#Known Limitations

  • Desktop AI is an Alpha, by invitation. It needs an Apple-silicon Mac with 24 GB of memory, is slower than the cloud models on long questions, and offers one model (Qwen 3.6 35B).
  • A Mac on an older Desktop AI shows the progress steps without the reading bar until it updates.
  • On an iPhone still running 0.14.12, the progress line and receipt don't appear and the tab still says Settings — update the app.
  • On a shared list, a line someone else is typing appears when they finish it, not letter by letter.

#Recent Releases

  • 0.14.13 (this release) — Desktop AI in the main app (Alpha); a progress line and a receipt on every answer; live shared lists; note versions; Settings becomes Control; Gemini 4 Argon, GPT-6.1 Sol and Gemini 3.8 Flash.
  • 0.14.12 — Stop really stops; Claude Haiku 5.5 and GPT-6; find in any document; your own item pictures and real album covers; shopping lists you shop from.
  • 0.14.11 — the iPhone catches up: long-press actions, tickable lists, journey reports for items and folders, safer sharing, spreadsheets into inventory; Claude Sonnet 5.5.

#Version History

Version Date Change
1 2026-10-19 Written for the 0.14.13 release.