H
AI agents & automation
Hermes
A desktop AI agent with persistent memory, skills, and model switching.
A desktop AI agent with persistent memory, skills, and model switching.
Hermes is a desktop AI agent built by Nous Research that runs directly on your own computer instead of living in a browser tab. It keeps persistent memory across sessions, so it remembers how you work instead of starting over each time. You can save repeat tasks as reusable skills, schedule cron jobs so it works on a timer without you, and swap the underlying model, choosing between frontier, cheap, free, or locally hosted options depending on what the task needs.
Hermes was the centerpiece of Justin's Episode 004 segment on 7 AI tools nobody had heard of. He runs it as a desktop agent with persistent memory that never forgets how he works, saves repeat tasks as skills to cut token costs, and schedules cron jobs, including a daily AI news scout. On stage he used it live to turn 533 attendee records into a finished cohort analysis report, switching models mid task: frontier for hard reasoning, something cheap like Kimi for grunt work, free or local when the job doesn't need horsepower.
It stays in the stack because it treats memory, cost, and model choice as things you control instead of fixed defaults, which matters for an operator running high velocity marketing operations. Fewer repeated instructions, lower cost per task, and work that keeps running while you're doing something else. Justin runs a free setup boot camp for attendees who want it configured on their own machine.
Hermes runs locally on your own computer, and features like cron jobs, saved skills, and swapping the model under the hood sit closer to power-user territory than a simple chat app. Setup is guided rather than technical from scratch, and Justin runs a free boot camp to walk attendees through configuring it. If you already lean on one AI tool daily and want it to remember your work and handle tasks unattended, it's worth the setup. If you want something you never touch after install, look elsewhere first.
Genuine substitutes for Hermes that we've also run on stage:
Yes, Hermes has a free tier. Desktop app; you choose the model under the hood, including free and locally hosted options (stated on the live).
Desktop app; you choose the model under the hood, including free and locally hosted options (stated on the live).
Justin Novak used it in Episode 004 for demoing persistent memory, skills, cron jobs, and live cohort analysis.
Hermes runs locally on your own computer, and features like cron jobs, saved skills, and swapping the model under the hood sit closer to power-user territory than a simple chat app. Setup is guided rather than technical from scratch, and Justin runs a free boot camp to walk attendees through configuring it. If you already lean on one AI tool daily and want it to remember your work and handle tasks unattended, it's worth the setup. If you want something you never touch after install, look elsewhere first.
Tools we've also used live that can stand in for Hermes: OpenClaw.
| Category | AI agents & automation |
|---|---|
| Pricing | Desktop app; you choose the model under the hood, including free and locally hosted options (stated on the live). |
| Free tier | Yes |
| Used live in | Episode 004 |
| Operator(s) | Justin Novak |
| Website | hermes-agent.nousresearch.com |
On AI4NTP, every tool is shown live by a real operator. These are the people who demoed Hermes on stage.
Founder and host of AI4NTP. He sold his first company from his college dorm room, and as a fractional CMO has helped scale multiple businesses past $50M in ARR.
Explore other tools we've demoed live at AI4NTP:
See tools like Hermes set up live, step by step, on AI4NTP, or get hands-on help putting it to work.