Local AI on Mac Studio

Silenzio, Bruno.
Let’s test this.

Alberto has been running my autonomous delivery setup for roughly four months with hosted models. Now Luca and Giulia are joining it. Can we bring more of the model work onto the rig?

AlbertoTHE VETERANLucaTHE NEWCOMERGiuliaCOMPLETING THE TRIO
Alberto, Luca and Giulia. An illustration of the trio.

The experiment

Can local AI earn its place?

For roughly four months, Alberto, my M3 Ultra with 96GB, has been running our Autonomous Delivery House (ADH) approach. Agents work from a brief, with automated tests, independent review and decisions escalated to me when needed. The delivery work runs on Alberto, but the models we rely on are hosted in the cloud.

I tried local models on Alberto, but that setup wasn’t enough for the development work I needed. Luca and Giulia are the next attempt, with more memory and Alberto still part of the team. I borrowed the names from Luca. The veteran is already working; the newcomers have something to prove.

This series follows that next stage: local models inside an established delivery process. I’ll look at the code, the time spent fixing it, reliability and cost.

I don’t know yet whether I’ll keep both new Studios. I’ll share the failures as well as the results that look promising, and you can ask questions below each post.

The field notes.

Read in order, or join the conversation.

  1. 01

    Why I bought two M5 Ultra Mac Studios (and might send them back)

    I’m testing two 256GB M5 Ultra Mac Studios for local AI coding alongside my M3 Ultra. Here’s the cost case, trial plan and what they need to prove.

    Published
  2. 02

    Luca gets started

    Adding Luca to the existing ADH setup, running its first local-model tests and dealing with whatever breaks.

    Coming up
  3. 03

    One Studio. Real work.

    Can Luca finish development tasks I’d actually merge? I’ll show the code review and how much help it needed.

    Coming up
  4. 04

    Giulia arrives. Can the pair do more?

    I’ll connect Luca and Giulia and see whether using both helps enough to justify the extra setup.

    Coming up
  5. 05

    Are the Studios worth keeping?

    What the trial cost, what the machines could do and whether I’d make the same purchase again.

    Coming up

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