Where AI runs
Some models run in your browser and some run on servers. This page says which is which, without rounding it up to on-device.
It is common to see AI features described as running on your device. On Surf, some do and some do not, and the difference matters because one of them sends text off your machine.
In your browser
- Safety screening of media you upload, as a fast pre-check.
- Topic classification, which is what topic sliders and muted topics act on.
- Image and text embedding, which is what visual search matches against.
- Face tracking for AR lenses in the camera and Studio.
On servers
- Summaries, comment themes, debate mapping, catch-ups and Ask.
- Transcription for captions, and vision for media descriptions and authoritative safety review.
- Text embeddings and search reranking, for semantic search.
So: writing help, summaries, semantic search and transcription do leave your device. They are not used to build an advertising profile, because there is no advertising, but they are not local either and this page will not say they are.
Daily quota
AI actions are metered per day and reset daily.
| Plan | AI actions a day |
|---|---|
| Free | 50 |
| Sapphire | 100 |
| Sapphire Pro | 100 |
| Sapphire Ultra | 300 |
Pro matches Sapphire on raw quota deliberately. What Pro adds is capability, meaning Copilot, the editing agent, catch-ups and dashboard insights, rather than a bigger number.