In plain terms
Open WebUI is the chat interface your team uses to talk to AI models. It looks and works like ChatGPT, but all conversations stay on your server — nothing is sent to the internet. You can upload documents, switch between models, and save conversation history.
What you can do
- Chat with any installed AI model
- Upload PDFs and ask questions about them
- Create custom AI assistants for specific tasks
- Share conversations with your team
- Set up user accounts and access controls
Open in your browser
Open the chat interface
Go to http://ai.local:3001 in your browser. Sign in with the account your administrator created for you, or create the admin account on first visit.
Select a model
Click the model name at the top of the chat to choose which AI model to use. Your system has Llama 3.1 installed by default — start there.
Start chatting
Type your question or request in the box at the bottom and press Enter. The AI responds in seconds — all on your server.
Chat with a document (RAG)
Click the + icon next to the input box and upload a PDF or text file. Then ask questions about it — "Summarise this", "What does section 3 say about payments?", etc.
Create a custom assistant
Go to Workspace → Models to create a named assistant with a specific system prompt — for example, an "HR Policy Assistant" that only answers based on your HR documents.