Alice AI Now Decides How Much Intelligence a Task Needs

Alice AI, an AI assistant developed by Yandex, can now determine on its own which AI model is best suited to a user's request — users no longer need to navigate settings or modes. For everyday tasks, it selects models that deliver quick answers. But when a task requires weighing multiple conditions, reviewing several documents at once, running calculations, or drawing up a step-by-step plan, Alice AI switches on Expert mode.

Users can turn on Expert mode manually, but by default, the system activates it automatically whenever it's needed. As a result, responses stay fast where speed matters most, while more complex tasks get the additional resources they require. This approach lets Alice AI handle a wide range of requests.

Expert mode proves especially useful in areas such as shopping, finance, law, healthcare, and travel. For example, users can set a maximum budget and ask Alice AI to plan a three-day trip for two to another city — picking cheaper dates and calculating the total cost, including transportation and accommodation. In Expert mode, users can follow the model's reasoning step by step, seeing how it works through a problem and what information it draws on along the way. Users can also upload several files at once and ask Alice AI to analyze them together. Expert mode is currently available to all users.

How Alice AI chooses a model

Model selection in Alice AI is handled by a proprietary automated routing system, which analyzes each request to determine the resources it may require and which model is best equipped to handle it.

The models are only part of the system. To prepare a response for a specialized request, the AI may search for information, process uploaded files, connect to services, and use other tools. Coordinating that process is the job of Alice AI's own agent architecture, or “harness”: a technological layer that helps the model plan its actions, retain context, and carry out tasks step by step.

For more on how the routing system and harness work, and how Yandex measures their impact on the quality of AI responses, see the article on Medium.