What Is Yao Agents

Yao Agents is a desktop app that gives you a team of AI Experts — running entirely on your own devices, with your data never leaving your machine.

> Your AI team. On your devices. Under your control.

## Why Yao Agents

Once installed, you have a team of AI workers — some answer questions, some run tasks on a schedule, one quietly reads and organizes everything you throw at it. They work on your machines. Your data stays yours.

And AI doesn't take over your computer. Connect a second device — a spare laptop, a VM, a container, or a server in the rack — and your AI team works there. Your screen stays free.

## What your team can do

- **Answer anything, with the right expert** — 30+ built-in AI Experts cover coding, writing, research, data analysis, project management, and more. Each one is tuned for its job.
- **Run tasks without you watching** — Robots execute on a schedule or trigger automatically. Morning briefings, inbox processing, data reports — done while you sleep.
- **Work across all your machines** — Connect laptops, VMs, containers, or servers through Tai Link. Your AI team operates there while your own screen stays completely free.

![Yao Agents — AI Experts panel showing 30+ built-in experts](https://assets.yaoagents.com/en/experts/01-experts-grid-en-$__THEME.png)

## How it works

Yao Agents runs as a local server on your machine (Yao Engine). The desktop client connects to it — think of the engine as the brain, and the client as the window you look through.

When you want AI to work on another device, you install Tai Link on that machine. It creates a secure tunnel back to your Yao Engine. Your AI team can then operate on that device while your own screen stays completely free.

All conversation history, knowledge, files, and task results live on your devices. The only traffic that leaves is the prompts sent to whichever LLM you've connected — and you choose that.

## What Yao Agents is not

It helps to know what this isn't:

- **Not a no-code bot builder** — you don't assemble flows or configure pipelines to get started. Open the app, pick an expert, start working.
- **Not a developer-only tool** — non-technical users can use it out of the box. Developers can extend it deeply via Hooks, MCP, and Processes.
- **Not just a chat window** — AI Experts handle tasks when you ask; Robots do the same autonomously on a schedule.

## What's next

- [Installation](/docs/en-us/getting-started/installation) — download and set up Yao Agents in a few minutes
- [AI Experts: Find the Right One](/docs/en-us/getting-started/ai-experts-intro) — choose the right expert and start working
- [Mission Control: Orchestrate Automation](/docs/en-us/getting-started/mission-control-intro) — let Robots handle your recurring tasks

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## Glossary

| Term | What it means |
|------|--------------|
| **AI Expert** | An AI persona tuned for a specific domain (coding, writing, research, etc.) — 30+ come built-in, and you can add your own. |
| **AI Task Agent** | An agent running inside Mission Control's execution pipeline |
| **Robot** | An autonomous task runner in Mission Control — works on a schedule, no prompting needed |
| **Mission Control** | The task dashboard where you create, schedule, and monitor Robots |
| **Tai Link** | The bridge that connects remote devices to your Yao Engine |
| **Yao Engine** | The local server that powers everything — runs on your machine |
| **BYOK** | Bring Your Own Key — you supply the API key for whichever LLM you want to use |
| **Pipeline** | The sequence of stages a Robot runs through to complete a task |