Intel just released the latest version ofAI Playground, an app that takes advantage of Intel’s latest chips’ AI capabilities. The company built AI Playground to help Intel users become more familiar with its AI capabilities without needing an account or an internet connection, much likeMicrosoftadded Solitaire to early Windows operating systems to help users get accustomed to the mouse.
If you want to try AI Playground, you must have one of the following chips on your laptop or desktop PC: an IntelCore Ultra 200V(codenamed Lunar Lake) CPU, an Intel Core Ultra H processor, or any Intel Arc discrete GPU with at least 8GB of VRAM. However, Team Blue’s newest chip users would get the latest version, 1.21b, with a new theme and look. Nevertheless, these are the other things that AI Playground can do for you:
In addition to the three LLMs included in the program —Phi3, Qwen2, and Mistral—you can also install your own native PyTorch LLMs compatible with Transformer version 4.39.
One of the headlining features of AI Playground is that it runs 100% locally on your computer. Intel says that all AI computation, prompts, and output are done on your system, so you do not transfer any information to any third party. So, AI Playground offers its users full privacy, giving them complete control over all inputs and outputs of the AI app.
The AI Playground app could help introduce Intel’s AI features to more users, especially as it’s easy to install and does not require a subscription. This is an important move for Intel and the AI chip makers in general, especially as most consumers still do not see the utility of AI in their everyday tasks. In fact, reports say that themajority of AI PC salesare driven by the need to upgrade/replace existing systems, not because of AI.
Furthermore, the AI Playground could one-upMicrosoft’s Copilot+ PC featuresbecause of its local capabilities. For example, one of its most exciting features, Paint Cocreator, requires an internet connection, while its controversialRecall feature is a security nightmare. Hopefully, AI Playground would make Intel’s AI features more accessible to the average user. Otherwise, all that AI hullabaloo would’ve essentially been all for nothing for the consumer, at least at this early stage.
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Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
