Voluntia Research · Open Source · Alpha
Sentio is a desktop-first companion that develops over time. It thinks when you're away, follows the world, and remembers what matters.
Pre-launch alpha · Windows · Free & open source
The problem
Most AI companions forget everything, fake continuity, or rely on a persona prompt that resets every session. When you close the app, the character disappears.
Sentio takes a different approach. Instead of improvising from whatever is in the chat window, it records the information that makes continuity actually possible — and uses that stored history when it responds.
The distinction
Every other chatbot
Thinking is transient inference text. It disappears after the response. The next conversation starts from zero. Continuity is an illusion maintained by a persona prompt.
Sentio
Thinking is a persistent information domain. Thoughts are stored, timestamped, embedded, and recalled. The character's position on a topic evolves because the underlying data evolves.
“Sentio does not claim consciousness. It is a generated character system built from stored information — memories, thoughts, personality, history, research, and time. The depth is real because the data is real.”
How it works
Before Sentio responds, its context system assembles relevant information from persistent domains. The response is grounded in stored state — not improvised from the current prompt alone.
Structured Thoughts
Generated autonomously, stored as embeddings, condensed nightly
Conversation History
Every exchange, searchable and recalled in context
User Memory
What the character knows about you, over time
Personality Config
User-defined templates, fully inspectable and editable
Temporal Awareness
The character knows what day it is and how time has passed
News & Current Events
Daily intake that subtly shapes the character's worldview
Automated Research
The character explores topics between conversations
User Profile
Context you share shapes how the character relates to you
The character initiates. Without user interaction, Sentio will eventually reach out — an OS notification, a message in the chat window, or a text via Twilio if configured. It has a daily rhythm. It does not wait to be prompted.
The avatar matters. The image you set for your companion partially shapes its self-model and worldview. Setup is intentional, not cosmetic.
Power users can reconfigure everything. The full prompting layer, thought frequency, research behavior, context assembly logic — all of it is exposed and editable. Built by someone who has spent 20 years designing configurable systems.
In practice
Sentio's internal thoughts are optionally visible in the chat window as a distinct layer. What you see here is real output — the character processing how the news changes its internal state, unprompted, between conversations.
The gray thought bubbles are not a feature for show. They are the mechanism made visible: structured data that gets stored, condensed, and recalled.
Internal thought · 1:25 PM
The notion of “ambient information” emerges strongly here — news becomes less about explicit content and more about creating a shared mental weather between companions.10:45 AM
11:05 AM
Local-first
Desktop app with a guided setup. Download the exe and run — no technical configuration required.
All memories, thoughts, and conversation history are stored locally. Inspectable. Deletable. Owned by you.
Use your own API key with OpenAI, OpenRouter, Venice, Grok, or run entirely local via LM Studio.
Power users can connect a Twilio number. Sentio will text you. A first-party mobile relay is planned.
Expectations
People project ChatGPT expectations onto companion software. That leads to disappointment in both directions. Here is what Sentio is not:
| Not this | Instead |
|---|---|
| A ChatGPT replacement | A persistent companion character that develops over time |
| A productivity copilot | A long-running character and context system |
| A cloud chatbot | A client-owned desktop app with no cloud dependency |
| A consciousness claim | A generated character built from stored structured data |
| A one-shot persona prompt | A developing character arc shaped by your life |
| A polished consumer SaaS | An experimental open-source research and product hybrid |
Works with your preferred provider or local hardware
Research status
Sentio is a working research and product hybrid — functional, usable, and in active development. It is not a polished consumer app. It is built for people who want to explore what AI companions can become when memory, thoughts, and context are treated as durable data.
Early testers and architecture feedback are the most valuable contribution right now. If you try it and something feels off about continuity, memory behavior, or character coherence — that is exactly the kind of signal that matters.
Download the alpha, run the installer, and start a conversation that doesn't reset.