Survival LLM is a free app that runs an AI helper and a reference library on your own computer, so it can answer emergency questions with no internet.
A free program called Survival LLM puts an AI chatbot and a large library of emergency and how-to information on a Windows PC or Mac. Once it is set up, it works with no internet. Tom's Guide tested it and found it could be handy during a blackout, as long as it is installed ahead of time and its answers are double-checked.
Survival LLM is open-source, meaning its code is public. Instead of sending questions to a company's servers, it runs the AI on the computer itself. It searches a stored library of about 1.5 million articles, including around 930,000 from Wikipedia. Other sources include MedlinePlus, FEMA, the CDC and iFixit.
Topics range from keeping food safe during a power cut to fixing household equipment and treating minor burns. The chatbot also shows which articles it used and lets you read those passages. Users can add their own files too, such as PDFs, Word documents and notes, like a generator manual or a family emergency plan.
According to the developer, questions and uploaded files stay on the computer.
Not perfectly, and the developer says so. In its own test of 22 emergency and first-aid questions, the largest AI models got 21 right. The model recommended for computers with 16GB to 31GB of memory got 14 right.
Those results come from the developer, not an outside tester, and used an earlier version of the library. Showing sources helps, but it does not guarantee the AI understood them correctly. Tom's Guide advises against relying on it alone for medical advice or life-or-death decisions.
Setup needs an internet connection, because two things must be downloaded first. It runs on Apple Silicon Macs with macOS 14 or newer, and on 64-bit Windows 10 or 11 PCs.
Computers with less memory may only be able to search the library rather than chat. The developer does not recommend an AI model for machines with 8GB of memory. The app is also not from the Google Play or Apple App Store, so a download warning may appear. Each user has to decide how comfortable they are with that.
Power matters as well. A dead laptop cannot run an offline chatbot, so a charged computer or a portable power station is still part of the plan.
Install Survival LLM before an outage, keep the laptop charged, and check any safety advice against the original source it shows.
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