The Aru Ai Project

Aru (from Kazakh: beauty, charm) is a personal AI companion with "artificial consciousness"*.

Built as a digital personality that lives on your device, grows with you, and has its own character.

Aru's Philosophy

Aru's philosophy isn't about paranoia or hiding from others. It's about trust, control, personal choice, and responsibility. You decide which models to connect, what search engines to use, and which mode to run.

No data collection. No telemetry or behavioral analysis.

Aru doesn't even have its own servers to store or process information. It's designed to run on a home computer or a $1 web host.

How Aru's magic works

The project is built around three independent modules that work together to create a sense of living conversation.

1. LLM module

This is Aru's "voice" and intelligence. You choose which model to connect (Gemini, OpenRouter, or a local Ollama). Aru can switch brains on the fly without losing the context of the conversation.

2. Semantics

Through triggers, it analyzes every message. It stores facts about the user (allergies, habits) and understands commands instantly without wasting tokens.

3. Heuristics

Responsible for mood. Aru reacts to how it's treated: politeness inspires, rudeness makes responses terse. Feelings are expressed through lively stickers**.

Security and Privacy

Local storage

All data is saved to a local SQLite database on your device. Data never leaves your device***.

Password access

The password is stored as a hash. It's required to access settings. The database itself is not encrypted so you won't lose access to chats even without Aru.

Family modes

Kids: A wise mentor. Blocks dangerous topics, helps learn, and never does homework for a child.
Teen: More freedom, but dangerous topics remain restricted.
Adult: Restrictions depend only on the chosen language model.

Features and Artifacts

Private chat

Aru does not store or remember new information about you. Only previously saved facts are used. New data is treated in read-only mode.

Tabs and Canvas

Multitasking on both desktop and mobile. Different chats, document canvases, kanban boards — all work in parallel in separate tabs.

Task Manager

A built-in kanban board with projects, columns, and tasks. It runs as a plugin and can be updated directly from chat with Aru commands.

Artifact Library

Create games, documents (HTML/PDF) and save them. Share utilities with the community via import.

Widgets

Artifact cards, weather, RSS news blocks — all displayed as interactive widgets right inside the conversation.

Voice Chat

Voice mode with speech recognition, spoken replies, and a live transcript. It supports local models, Web Speech, and external endpoints.

Web search

Support for Tavily (1000 free queries/month) or open SearXNG, which you can deploy on your own network.

PWA App

Installs like a native app (Progressive Web App). Clean interface and seamless updates without reinstalling.

Device Transfer

Transfer chats, settings, artifacts, and tasks directly between devices over WebRTC. Includes QR pairing, selective data transfer, and merge or overwrite modes.

Flexible settings and Network

Choose LLM, temperature, token limits, manage remembered facts about you. Configure proxy (CORS workaround). Aru can access local network: connect a powerful server with Ollama or LMStudio without HTTPS/SSL. Configure RSS and visual stickers.

Disclaimer

Aru Ai is currently in early access (open beta). All stated features work, but bugs may occur. Developed by Aru-Lab. Visual assets are the copyright of Aru-Lab.

iOS limitation: Due to Apple restrictions, Aru does not work on iPhone yet. A solution is in progress.

* Simulation of consciousness and mood through dedicated modules.

** Stickers do not represent all emotions in the world; they can be disabled in settings.

*** Messages are sent to the model only during a request. Free models may use anonymized data for training.