How to Run AI Models Offline for Free on Windows

    One of my great fears is an internet outage because of how much we rely on it today with the advent of cloud computing and web-based applications, as well as the phone system running off of VOIP and not POTS. An internet outage would send us back not to the 1980s but to the 1880s. However, this application would allow you to access information without an internet connection or a web browser.

    That is where the free software Jan AI comes into play. Download it from the official website and run the exe. After running, it will ask you to download your models. This is the pretrained model that will answer your questions. Click on the model you want, then click download. I chose the first model and I will compare my PC’s local speed versus the online version of Google Gemini. After waiting for your download, you can go to the chat interface. I asked it three questions. First, a basic fact: “What is the capital of Texas?” Then I asked it to write me a three-paragraph essay on the creation of the iPhone. Finally, I asked it to revise the first draft of this article up to this part. The table below shows the answers, the times it provided them, and the comparison to the cloud version of Gemini.

    For the first question, it answered in a few seconds but “thought” for about 20 seconds. In 26 seconds it gave me the correct answer: Austin. Google’s Gemini only took about three and three-quarter seconds, essentially seven times faster than Jan AI. When I asked for an essay on the iPhone, it took only 1 minute and 35 seconds while Gemini took under 10 seconds. The essays are linked below—tell me in the comments which one is better.

Jan        Gemini 

Finally, for the article revision, Jan AI finished at 3 minutes and 28 seconds. Ironically, in the research, it said that there is no major model called Jan AI and even called Jan AI a “hypothetical tool” in the article.  

    As for Gemini, it completed two rewrites in five seconds without claiming Jan AI doesn’t exist. However, as a tool, Jan AI is a good offline use of AI and should be useful if the internet or power ever go out. This test was conducted on an HP Envy x360 with 32 GB of RAM using the Jan-v1-4B-Q4_K_M model and the Gemini 2.5 Flash model. God bless and Tech Talk To You Later!!!