Choose Your AI Provider

ClawBox is flexible about which AI powers your assistant. You pick during setup and can change it later, from Settings → Providers.

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ClawBox AI (default)

Works immediately, no keys to manage, and it powers more than chat — see ClawBox AI. There is no model to choose here: the chat names the provider and shows no model pill and no plan selector beside it. It thinks at Medium by default; the reasoning control moves it.

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Sign in with a subscription you already pay for

If you already pay a model vendor, use that instead of a metered API key. The panel has two tabs, API key and Subscription: Each flow shows the steps on screen: the box opens the vendor’s page, you approve there, and you paste back the code or URL it gives you. The box never asks for your vendor password.

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Bring your own API key

Open the AI provider section of setup, choose the provider, and paste the key. ClawBox stores it on the device and never shows it back to you.

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Models on the box

For inference that never leaves the device, ClawBox ships Gemma 4 (on-device) on llama.cpp, and supports Ollama and other llama.cpp models. Turning a local model on makes it available; making it the default is a separate choice. On the OpenClaw and dual editions, once the box’s own model is primary or fallback, Local-only mode switches every cloud provider off. See Local AI for the full inventory, and Hardware for what each model can run.

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Reasoning effort

You can control how hard the model thinks before answering, per conversation, from the brain icon in the chat header. More thinking gives better answers on hard problems, and costs more time and tokens. The picker offers the same four levels on every cloud provider — Off, Low, Medium, High — so it works the same way whichever model you choose.

• Every cloud provider — ClawBox AI, Claude, GPT, Gemini and OpenRouter — starts at Medium, so a fresh session thinks before it answers and you turn the dial down rather than up.
• The on-device local model has no reasoning control, so the brain icon does not appear when it is selected.

Your choice is remembered per provider. If you switch to a provider that does not offer your current level, it falls back to that provider’s default.

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Switching later

Change provider any time from Settings → Providers. Nothing needs restarting and no re-setup is involved; the next message uses the new provider. Conversations you already have open are moved across with it. You can also change per conversation from the chat pills, without touching the box’s default — see Chat.