What it is
Orkas is an open-source desktop app from the GitHub organization Orkas-AI; the README calls it an "open-source, local-first multi-agent desktop app." You describe what you need in one chat window, and a Commander splits the work and hands it to specialist agents, in parallel or in sequence. Nine specialists come built in, covering deep research, writing, slide decks, Word/Excel/PowerPoint/PDF files, images, video, UI design, code and search optimization, and they deliver editable PPTX and Office files, images and captioned video. You can connect your own keys for Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, DeepSeek, Kimi, Qwen, Doubao and others, mix providers across agents, or point it at local models. The biggest difference from a single chatbot is that several agents share one plan, and each keeps its own skills and memory.
Who it's for:Office workers and researchers who regularly produce reports, slides and documents and want to split a big job across several AI agents.
Before you start: There are installers for macOS and Windows; Linux runs from source (Node.js 22.12+). The packaged app asks you to sign in to an Orkas account on first launch; the source build has no account layer. The app is free and you pay your chosen model providers directly, or you can opt into Orkas's own model, billed through membership or credit packs. The README says conversations, files and keys stay on your machine and direct model calls skip Orkas's servers; the official privacy policy says that account sync, Orkas-hosted models, search, media and connectors send the relevant content to Orkas and its providers, and that anonymous usage statistics are collected. Installing from source downloads an embedding model and changes the repository's own Git hook setting, and the first launch sets up several runtimes, which takes disk space and bandwidth. The agents can read and write local files and use connectors, so decide how much access to give them before you start. Licensed under MIT.
Based on the project's public documentation and the official privacy policy. Not tested by AI Inspiration World.