Handbook · AI and processing

Choosing an AI

Apple Intelligence, a local model in LM Studio or a cloud service: what to pick and how to connect it.

Much of InfoBubble runs without any AI: fetching, the Reader feed, tags, sentiment and places (an on-device model), search, the map, keyword tabs, translation and export. An AI is needed for AI Search prompts, Summaries, Chat and filling in word forms.

The options

Apple Intelligence	Built in, private, free, nothing to set up. Works on Apple Silicon Macs where Apple Intelligence is turned on. The model is small: fine for summaries in its supported languages, weaker at judging subtle criteria. Assigned to both jobs automatically if available.
Local model (LM Studio, Ollama)	Free and private, runs on your Mac; needs 16 GB of RAM or more. A good mid-size model reads the news much better than Apple's. Step-by-step: Local AI with LM Studio.
Cloud service	Any OpenAI-compatible API. The strongest models, paid per use; article text is sent to that service.

Add a provider

Open InfoBubble → Settings → AI and click Manage… under AI Providers.
Add Provider, give it a Name and choose a Type: OpenAI Compatible or Apple Intelligence.
For OpenAI Compatible fill in API URL, API Key (leave empty for a local server), Model Name and Context Window (tokens), then press Test Connection.

Settings → AI: providers, which provider does which job, and how many requests run at once.

A provider for a model served by LM Studio on the same Mac.

Assign providers to jobs

Under Provider Assignment there are two pickers, so you can mix:

Criteria & Tags: checks every article against your AI Search prompts. Called very often, so pick a fast model without reasoning.
Summaries & Chat: called rarely, reads a lot. A stronger model pays off here.

Choosing — Not Selected — turns AI fully off for that job. Test Both Connections checks both.

Other AI settings

Skip off-topic news without AI: see AI Search criteria.
Parallel AI Requests: how many articles are sent at once. Lower it if a local server struggles.
Clear Cache: forget stored AI answers, e.g. after switching to a better model.

Questions or problems? Open an issue in the GitHub repository.