Ukrainian software developer MacPaw has partnered with AI firm Liquid AI to build locally hosted, on-device AI models, with plans to eventually offer this technology to developers building apps for its SetApp store. The move signals a push towards privacy-focused, offline-capable AI tools, positioning MacPaw's platform as a rival to Apple's own on-device AI offerings for developers.

Under the deal, Liquid AI is developing an on-device inference system called Elix and a local memory system to power a locally hosted version of MacPaw's AI assistant, Eney, first unveiled last year. MacPaw chief executive Oleksandr Kosovan said this would let users run AI assistants and agentic workflows offline, while also giving SetApp's more than 150,000 paying subscribers access to cloud-based models from firms such as Google. The company is also trialling credit-based pricing for AI features on the app store, letting users pay based on the number and complexity of AI operations performed.