What is the Nextcloud AI assistant?

Nextcloud AI adds built-in AI features to a self-hosted Nextcloud en­vi­ron­ment. Teams benefit from AI support without sharing data with external services such as Google or OpenAI.

What is Nextcloud AI?

The Nextcloud AI assistant is a set of AI features built into Nextcloud Hub. It runs inside a self-hosted Nextcloud en­vi­ron­ment, which gives companies more control over their data and in­fra­struc­ture. The goal of the assistant is simple: provide powerful AI features that are both privacy-friendly and flexible to deploy. Unlike many AI tools that process data on third-party in­fra­struc­ture, Nextcloud AI can run locally or on servers your company controls. Nextcloud also follows an open-source model. What’s more, busi­ness­es can choose from different backend options based on their technical and com­pli­ance re­quire­ments. Depending on the model setup, features such as retrieval-augmented gen­er­a­tion can also in­cor­po­rate company-specific data:

• Nextcloud models
• Local LLMs with open-source code
• Local LLMs tailored to Nextcloud
• Local LLMs tailored to Nextcloud and VectorDB
• LLMs as a service, for example through IONOS
• Well-known models such as OpenAI, DALL-E and Gemini

The AI assistant extends Nextcloud’s existing office, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion tools. Teams can use it to automate routine work, speed up document handling, organize in­for­ma­tion, and complete everyday tasks more ef­fi­cient­ly. Companies can also decide which AI modules to enable and how to configure them.

Why did Nextcloud launch its AI ini­tia­tive?

Nextcloud launched its AI ini­tia­tive in response to the growing need for a privacy-focused al­ter­na­tive to big tech AI platforms. Instead of sending sensitive data to external cloud services, Nextcloud allows busi­ness­es to run AI workloads inside their own in­fra­struc­ture. Nextcloud supports open-source models that are secure, trans­par­ent and easy to customize.

Nextcloud is steadily expanding its AI features so or­ga­ni­za­tions can adopt modern AI tools without weakening com­pli­ance or data pro­tec­tion. The ini­tia­tive also involves part­ner­ships with European hosting and tech­nol­o­gy providers to support further de­vel­op­ment in this area. Nextcloud also works to keep setup and in­fra­struc­ture re­quire­ments man­age­able, helping create an AI ecosystem that supports digital sov­er­eign­ty.

What features does Nextcloud AI offer?

Even though Nextcloud AI runs locally, users don’t have to com­pro­mise on features. The Nextcloud AI assistant offers a wide range of ca­pa­bil­i­ties designed specif­i­cal­ly for team col­lab­o­ra­tion and office work. It helps teams handle recurring tasks faster and create content more ef­fi­cient­ly, making day-to-day work easier. Key features include:

• Text gen­er­a­tion and sum­ma­riza­tion: Nextcloud AI helps users write emails, reports, and other kinds of texts. It can also summarize long documents au­to­mat­i­cal­ly and help with phrasing.
• Image gen­er­a­tion and media analysis: Nextcloud also supports gen­er­a­tive AI. Users can create il­lus­tra­tions in the private cloud, analyze images and identify their contents.
• Automatic trans­la­tion: The assistant provides fast, privacy-friendly trans­la­tions without third-party services, making it useful for in­ter­na­tion­al teams and com­mu­ni­ca­tion with people outside the company.
• Speech recog­ni­tion: Nextcloud AI converts audio record­ings, Nextcloud Talk meetings and in­ter­views into text, making doc­u­men­ta­tion, ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty and knowledge man­age­ment easier.
• In­tel­li­gent search: Nextcloud AI searches documents, chats, emails, and files beyond simple keyword matches, helping users find in­for­ma­tion faster.
• AI agent: Nextcloud AI can act as a helpful AI agent in day-to-day work. For example, it can create meetings in Nextcloud Calendar or read messages from Nextcloud Talk.
• Chat: Nextcloud AI also offers a chat feature that can answer questions about your documents.

How do you activate and use Nextcloud AI?

You can activate Nextcloud AI through the Nextcloud app store. Admins can install in­di­vid­ual AI modules for trans­la­tion, text gen­er­a­tion as well as image and speech recog­ni­tion. After ac­ti­va­tion, the features appear in the related apps. Depending on the setup, Nextcloud AI uses local AI models or privacy-focused external models. Sensitive in­for­ma­tion does not have to leave your own in­fra­struc­ture. In most cases, setup only requires a few admin settings, such as choosing a model, assigning resources and enabling optional features.

Users can access the AI tools from the nav­i­ga­tion bar in Nextcloud Hub. From there, they can draft text, summarize content or translate material without leaving their current app.

Companies benefit even more when Nextcloud AI runs in a pro­fes­sion­al­ly managed en­vi­ron­ment. AI features typically require extra server capacity as well as careful security controls. A managed Nextcloud solution handles updates, model op­ti­miza­tion, security patches and per­for­mance tuning for you. That reduces admin overhead and lets teams focus on using the AI ef­fec­tive­ly.

What are the benefits of the Nextcloud AI assistant?

Nextcloud AI helps companies work faster and more ef­fi­cient­ly, speeds up internal processes and improves col­lab­o­ra­tion across teams and locations. Or­ga­ni­za­tions still have full control over their data, which is one of the biggest ad­van­tages of running Nextcloud AI locally. It can also make privacy and security re­quire­ments easier to address, for example under HIPAA, GLBA or state privacy laws such as the CCPA/CPRA. Local pro­cess­ing also reduces risks often as­so­ci­at­ed with external AI platforms, such as unclear data flows or third-party access to sensitive in­for­ma­tion.

Nextcloud AI is flexible enough to meet a range of business needs. Companies can choose the AI features they want and set up the en­vi­ron­ment as they see fit. Because the assistant is built into tools they already use, employees can start using it with little extra training. That helps teams work more ef­fi­cient­ly without dis­rupt­ing existing workflows.

An overview of Nextcloud AI’s main ad­van­tages

✓ Strong data sov­er­eign­ty and support for US privacy re­quire­ments

✓ In­de­pen­dence from com­mer­cial cloud AI services

✓ Faster, more efficient workflows

✓ Easier research, doc­u­men­ta­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion

✓ AI features you can enable as needed

✓ Greater security and trans­paren­cy through open source

✓ Less admin effort with managed Nextcloud

How does Nextcloud AI work in Nextcloud Workspace?

Nextcloud AI is a core part of Nextcloud Workspace, the office solution developed by IONOS. It works across the platform’s apps, so users can access AI features directly in the tools they already use.

They can use it to summarize text, translate content and generate images in Nextcloud Workspace, without having to deal with the un­der­ly­ing hosting or main­te­nance.