Closing Out 2025 – What We Built Together

At the beginning of 2025, we were still figuring a lot out.

We had seen strong adoption and positive feedback with the original Msty App, but it was clear that the future wasn’t just about shipping another version of the same thing. We wanted to move beyond the limits of a single desktop app and explore what a more flexible, long-term AI workspace could look like.

Msty Studio started as an effort to bring that experience to the web while still preserving the security and privacy that matter so much to our users. Keeping data private and local in a web environment wasn’t the hard part. What surprised us was how difficult it was to fully replicate the local experience people loved, especially when it came to performance, model control, and reliability.

That led to an important shift.

Instead of choosing between desktop or web, we focused on building both, with tighter connections between them. Msty Studio became a shared experience across desktop and web, designed to use each where it works best. With the new Studio architecture, this ended up being far more seamless than anything we could have done with the original Msty App.

From there, things really started to move. 🚀

Over the course of 2025, Msty Studio kept evolving with more local model support, better workflows, improved real-time data, Shadow Personas, early foundations for teams and organizations, and a steady stream of quality-of-life improvements driven by real feedback.

Looking back, we’re genuinely proud of how far it’s come and grateful for the community that helped shape it along the way!

The Year Msty Studio Started Feeling “Real”

Early in the year, it became clear that Msty Studio wasn’t just a rewrite or a new UI. It was the direction.

The original Msty App helped people get started with AI in a way that felt approachable. Studio is where everything began to connect: more powerful features, more flexible workflows, and an architecture designed to grow with how people actually use AI.

Throughout 2025, Msty Studio introduced and expanded things like:

• A Toolbox for MCP and tool-based workflows
• Turnstile, to automate and chain actions together
• Personas, for building custom AI assistants
• Shadow Personas, to assist with conversations from analysis and synthesis to fact-checking and monitoring
• Live Contexts, bringing real-time data into chats
• Knowledge Stacks, enabling RAG-style context from your own data
• Forge Mode, to refine and enhance writing
• MLX support for Apple Silicon
• Llama.cpp support for broader local inference options
• And many smaller improvements that added up over time

If you want the full list, the 2025 changelog tells the story release by release.

We also moved from msty.app to msty.ai. That change wasn’t about branding polish but moreso acknowledging reality that Msty was no longer just an app. It was becoming a platform built around Studio as the core workspace for AI-powered workflows, whether you’re working solo or as part of a team.

AI is changing quickly, and our focus has been to make it accessible regardless of technical background, while still being reliable and trustworthy. Because if AI can’t actually be depended on and provide meaningful value, then it doesn’t really matter how powerful it is.

That focus on reliability and ease of use even caught Apple’s attention, leading them to feature Msty Studio on their own website during the M5 unveiling. 🤩

Not a bad way to cap off the year!

Writing to Explain, Not to Sell

If you followed the blog this year, you probably noticed a shift in how we write.

That wasn’t accidental.

As Msty Studio grew, we realized that simply announcing features wasn’t very helpful on its own. AI tools can sound impressive on paper, but that doesn’t mean people immediately understand why a feature exists, when to use it, or how it fits into their day-to-day work.

So we tried to slow things down.

Instead of leading with buzzwords or release notes, we focused on writing posts that explain what’s actually happening under the hood, what problems a feature is meant to solve, and how real people are using it in practice. Less “here’s what we shipped” and more “here’s how this might actually help you.”

That approach led to posts like:

• Getting Started Quickly with Msty Studio, for people opening the app and not knowing where to begin
• Msty Studio Delivers Secure AI Chat Without the Burden, for those who care about privacy but don’t want to become security experts
• Unlocking Real-Time Insights, breaking down real-time data in plain terms
• 5 Ways to Use Local Inference with Msty Studio, focused on practical setups instead of theory
• 5 Things People Love Doing with Msty Studio’s Free Plan, inspired directly by how the community was already using it

Some of the most meaningful feedback we received this year wasn’t about performance or features at all. It was simply:

Thanks for explaining this in a way that finally makes sense.

That comment stuck with us.

It reinforced the idea that clarity is just as important as capability. If people can’t understand how a tool works or feel intimidated by it they’re unlikely to ever get value from it, no matter how powerful it is.

We’ve tried to carry that same mindset beyond the blog as well. Through walkthroughs and hands-on videos on YouTube, we focus on real workflows, real setups, and real use cases that show how things actually work instead of just talking about them.

If you prefer learning by seeing and doing, check out our YouTube channel.

Meeting People Where They Are

2025 also meant getting out of our own bubble.

From Ai4 in Las Vegas to Dubai AI Week, we met people who were excited about AI, skeptical of it, or completely overwhelmed by it. Sometimes, all at once.

Those conversations were grounding. They reinforced something we see every day in our community: most people aren’t chasing the latest model release, they just want tools that don’t fight them.

A lot of what we’re building next comes directly from those moments.

What This Year Really Changed

If there’s one thing 2025 reinforced for us, it’s this:

People don’t want “more AI.” They want AI that fits into their lives and workflows without taking them over.

This year was about earning trust:

• Trust that your data stays yours
• Trust that updates won’t break everything
• Trust that feedback actually matters

That trust didn’t come from one big launch. It came from dozens of small improvements, bug fixes, conversations, and course corrections.

A huge part of that happened in our Discord community. From feature ideas and workflow questions to bug reports and honest critiques, the Discord became a real feedback loop. Many of the improvements in Studio this year can be traced directly back to conversations that started there.

Looking Ahead

We’re heading into 2026 with more clarity than we had a year ago.

There’s still plenty to build. Still things to simplify. Still rough edges to smooth out. But the direction feels solid and it’s shaped as much by you as by us.

We have a lot planned for the coming year with deeper support for teams and organizations, continued investment in local-first workflows, and new features that focus on helping you actually get work done.

If you’ve been using Msty Studio this year, thank you for sticking with it.

If you sent feedback, reported bugs, or asked hard questions, especially thank you. 🙏

And if you’re just finding Msty now, you’re arriving at a good moment.

We’re glad you’re here. 🫶