How To Add AI To Obsidian 📝 (Free Private Local) 🤖 Smart Connections

Hi Friends, my name is Callum aka wanderloots. In today's video, I walk through How To Add AI To Obsidian in a Free, Private, and Local way 📝💡 I compare various AI plugins for Obsidian, explain why I would use them (or not use them) and then show you how to introduce automatic linking suggestions with the Smart Connections Plugin.

New ideas, surfacing insights, making connections, distilling complex information, there is no end to how AI can boost the notes you're already taking ✨

The Smart Connections Plugin is a free & private AI tool operates locally within Obsidian, with various features that leverage your existing note-taking through a local embeddings model. That means your data never leaves your computer. Smart Connections brings in "Semantic Searching" which is FAR more powerful than classic keyword searches.

One of the main reasons I use Obsidian for my note-taking is that it operates in markdown, producing a future-proof intellectual property asset that can connect seamlessly with AI tools.

It's truly an incredible way to take your static notes in obsidian and turn them into dynamic knowledge, while retaining the authenticity of your own writing to work WITH AI, rather than replace your thinking/writing.

I hope you enjoy! ✨

To learn more about how I organize my Obsidian vault with an eye to AI-integration, check out my PKM & Digital Gardening Obsidian Playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWhMzDKA7vJ7p50vW-oeZgKR2aDReZFW6

P.S. I greatly appreciate any feedback, please let me know what you think 😊

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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro To AI + Obsidian (safely)
01:35 Today's Video Outline
02:22 Context On How I Use Obsidian
03:57 Phase 1: Reviewing My Goals & Expectations Of AI In Obsidian
04:52 My 3 Goals, Embedding Models & Local Models Explained
07:42 Phase 2: Evaluating AI Plugins For Obsidian (Options)
10:11 Ask AI How To Use AI (Perplexity + NotebookLM)
14:47 Phase 3: Smart Connections Plugin
17:53 Installing The Smart Connections Plugin In Obsidian
20:31 Smart Connection Plugin Settings
23:24 Embedding Models
25:29 Starting The Embedding Process
30:23 Testing The "Smart Connections" Feature
31:24 Smart Lookup - Semantic Searching
35:53 Smart Connection Topic Example
37:23 New Note Example (Smart Connection Overview)
39:29 Obsidian Copilot + Local LLM Model (LM Studio) & Next Steps

References:
1. Embeddings graphic https://qdrant.tech/articles/what-are-embeddings/
2. RAG graphic https://medium.com/google-cloud/google-cloud-rag-api-c7e3c9931b3e
3. API graphic https://www.postman.com/what-is-an-api/
4. Local RAG Workflow Graphic https://www.linkedin.com/posts/manojkumar-manoharan\_ai-llm-rag-activity-7190289917707493376--ouC/

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MY FAVOURITE TOOLS
😴 🤯 The [Waking Up App](https://dynamic.wakingup.com/guestpass/SC4914439) (use this link for a 30 day free trial)
📝 [Obsidian](https://obsidian.md/) (decentralized note-taking)
📹 [Adobe Suite](https://prf.hn/l/lQ9DwpA) (general creativity)
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10. Main Lighting Neewer 660 PRO RGB: https://amzn.to/3CEcU2V