Create your own AI: The practical path to Local Artificial Intelligence

How to set up, secure, and leverage your own generative AI system at home or in your business

“Create Your Own AI” is a comprehensive, hands-on guide for anyone who wants to build a fully private generative AI system—at home or within a small or medium-sized organization. Instead of relying on cloud platforms, this book shows you how to deploy powerful open-source models locally, control your own data, and create intelligent tools tailored to your real needs.

Across its chapters, you will discover how today’s generative models truly work, how the technology evolved into modern LLMs, and how to install, configure, and operate them using secure, free, and open-source software. The book walks you step-by-step through setting up models such as Llama, Mistral, DeepSeek, Phi, Gemma, and Qwen, using tools like Ollama, LM Studio, AnythingLLM, GPT4All, Jan, and advanced frameworks such as llama.cpp.

You will learn how to transform a local model into a document manager, a summarization engine for complex texts, a corporate-aligned content generator, or an internal chatbot capable of answering employee questions based on your company’s own policies. The book also explores local data analysis, internal agents, automation, and security-first workflows for real-world environments.

Security, privacy, and data governance are core pillars of this guide. You’ll find practical hardening measures, isolation techniques, SOC-style monitoring principles, and clear recommendations to prevent data leaks, unauthorized access, or model manipulation—tailored specifically for small business environments.

At its heart, “Create Your Own AI” is an empowering roadmap to regain technological sovereignty. It equips you with the knowledge, tools, and practices needed to build a robust, secure, and completely private AI ecosystem—fully aligned with the unique requirements of your home, business, or organization.