Went to recommend Nextcloud to someone and discovered they have an "AI Assistant" product now :/
From the website
"Accessible using the Assistant button on the top-right, it can be be called up to use with any team collaboration tools. Allows users to execute pre-defined operations (summarize, create a headline etc) or give a free prompt. Self-hosted or cloud-based, you choose the AI model to power your assistant. Several local large language models are supported meaning users can access the full power of large language models without fearing data leaks "
The feature does seem optional and not something just rammed down our throats like the big tech companies are doing
CC: @zleap@qoto.org @nextcloud@mastodon.xyz
@cy @mcc @zleap we see how and why some people don't like the AI. Thanks for sharing your reasoning. AI in Nextcloud is fully optional as mentioned, and off-by-default for this very reason, and anyone can plug in their own models. We are merely broadening the options for those who need it — so more people can use our collaboration tools the way they prefer, and hopefully ditch the Big Tech for that.
One thing about Nextcloud is that it can be self-hosted, which to me mitigates Ai as you simply don't enable that option if self-hosting.
Seems big tech have done some real damage to the reputation and trust of technology.
@zleap @nextcloud "Optional" isn't good enough. I've dropped multiple pieces of software already because of the presence of "optional" AI. As far as I'm concerned, AI rejection is a moral matter, and I don't want to support a company or organization that is contributing to the growth of "AI".
There is also the problem that once an org embraces "AI", they tend to make it less and less optional over time: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/08/firefox-high-cpu-usage-inference-disable They make one bad decision, why wait around for more bad decisions?