Builds / $3k tier
The front door: local AI under $3k
Two thousand dollars is where local AI stops being a screenshot and starts being a machine on your desk. A voice assistant that answers in half a second, every document you own searched by a model that never phones home, the decision-model wave running your triage for free. Setup is an afternoon: plug it in, download a runtime, load a model, talk to it.
The candidates
This is the tier where local AI becomes boring, which is the highest compliment. The box is silent, the answers are fast, and the models are big enough that you stop asking what a model can do and start asking what you want done. Your writing assistant, your code reviewer, your document librarian, your form-filler: all local, all day, on hardware that uses less power than the monitor next to it.
See the $5k tier →