illumi
illumi is an AI visual workspace that connects notes, prompts, and AI outputs on a spatial canvas so you can compare 30+ models and carry the work through to
If your current AI workflow is pasting the same prompt into three chatbots and reconciling answers by hand, illumi removes the copy-paste and keeps the inputs, prompts, and reasoning attached to the result. The Pro jump — 5 to 50 context boards, premium model access, 5 collaborators per board, and DOCX/email export — is where it becomes genuinely useful; the free Starter tier is a working canvas but has no premium models and a 7-day history window. Compare against Notion plus a chat subscription: illumi trades documentation polish for a visual layer and native model switching. Skip it if you need a native mobile or desktop app, an API, or synchronous co-editing today.
Verified 16d ago · liveness 66/100 · cite: rightaichoice.com/tools/illumi
- Consultants and strategists who need to show clients the reasoning behind AI-assisted work
- Founders and product teams comparing model outputs before committing to a direction
- Research synthesis across many scattered sources, prompts, and AI responses
- Marketers and sales teams running GTM planning and proposal building
- Anyone who needs a native mobile or desktop app — illumi runs in the browser only
- Developers who need an API or SDK to wire AI outputs into automated workflows
- Teams expecting real-time synchronous co-editing on every plan
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Skip illumi if your workflow needs a native mobile app, an API or SDK, or live synchronous co-editing — it is a browser-only canvas with async collaboration and no programmable surface today.
Pro's 20 premium-model requests per week run out fast if you benchmark Claude 4.6 Opus or GPT-5.4 across several drafts; the pricing page lists no per-request overage rate, so the practical cost is waiting or upgrading
Starter at $0 forever with five basic models is unusually generous for a canvas tool and undercuts what you would spend stacking a $20/mo chat subscription on top of a notes app. Pro at $12/mo annual ($16 monthly) is cheaper than most single-vendor premium chat plans while giving access to 30+ models. Small teams reviewing work async fit Pro; larger teams needing a pooled premium quota and 200 boards wait on the TBA Team tier.
In short
illumi — illumi is an AI visual workspace that connects notes, prompts, and AI outputs on a spatial canvas so you can compare 30+ models and carry the work through to. Best for Consultants and strategists who need to show clients the reasoning behind AI-assisted work, Founders and product teams comparing model outputs before committing to a direction, Research synthesis across many scattered sources, prompts, and AI responses. Free to start; paid plans from $12/mo.
What's new in illumi
Checked 4 days agoAcross the latest 8 updates: 3 feature updates and 5 community discussions.
illumi compares AI tools for product managers by workflow
illumi published a comparison of AI tools for product managers, organized by workflow stage rather than feature lists.
illumi on why better prompts don't fix AI memory loss
illumi argues context retention, not prompt craft, is the limiting factor in long-running AI work.
illumi pushes multi-model workflows over single-model picking
illumi argues teams should route tasks across multiple models instead of standardizing on one.
illumi publishes AI research tool comparison by workflow stage
illumi compared AI research tools by the stage of the research workflow they serve.
illumi positions its product as an AI workspace, not chat
illumi contrasts chat interfaces with workspace-style tools for complex AI knowledge work.
illumi adds past-work referencing and live web results
illumi update lets users reference prior work directly and pull live web results into boards.
illumi adds per-task AI model configuration
illumi now lets users assign different AI models to different types of work.
illumi launches new Draft Page for pre-board capture
illumi introduced a Draft Page as a home for notes before they move to a board.
What people actually say about illumi — is it worth it?
We ran a structured research pass across product reviews, community discussions, and post-purchase forum threads to surface the patterns vendors won't publish themselves. Below: the recurring strengths, the hidden costs people mention most, and the cohort that consistently regrets adopting this tool.
22 mentions across 5 sources (Hacker News, YouTube, Product Hunt, App Store, Lemmy), 44 more we could not attribute · researched Sep 9, 2026.
Weighted by the 66 posts each of 5 sources contributed.
- +Spatial canvas organizes messy ideas into structured boards.
- +Multi-model comparison across 30+ AI models in one view.
- +Active context management gives precise control over AI inputs.
- +Transparent collaboration shows reasoning behind outputs to teams.
- +Exports to PDF, Markdown, DOCX, and email directly.
- −No native mobile or desktop apps—web only for all usage.
- −Team features immature; unclear if billing per seats or usage.
- −Pricing unclear from available info; tiers not detailed.
- −No integration with other tools like Slack or Google Drive.
- −Learning curve for active context management is non-trivial.
Viability Score
How well maintained and how widely used is illumi? Built from what the vendor actually publishes (docs, changelog, tutorials, integrations, pricing), whether the site is live, and how much real users discuss it. How we calculate this
Last calculated: October 2026
How we score →Key Features
- Spatial canvas with cards, sticky notes, and shapes for structuring ideas
- Compare outputs from 30+ AI models against one shared context
- Active context management: edit prompts and remove noisy inputs per output
- Premium models: Claude 4.6 Sonnet, Claude 4.6 Opus, GPT-5.2, GPT-5.4, Gemini 1.5 Pro
- Premium reasoning and image models: DeepSeek R1, GPT-o3 pro, Grok 4.1, GPT Image 1.5
- Image generation and editing via Nano Banana, IMAGEN4 Ultra, IMAGEN4, IMAGEN4 Fast, Stable Diffusion 3.5
- Standard models: Claude 4.5 Sonnet, Claude 4.5 Haiku, GPT-5, DeepSeek V3.2, Kimi K2.5, GLM 5
- Basic models on all plans including free: Claude 4, GPT-4.1, DeepSeek V3, Grok 4, Gemini 1.5 Flash
- AI crew configuration to assign different models to different types of work
- Draft Page for capturing notes before moving them onto a board
- Reference past work and pull live web results into active context
- Context boards that group work by topic with per-board collaborator limits
- Transparent collaboration: shared viewers see inputs, prompts, outputs, and reasoning
- Guest viewer links with read-only access, or editor publish rights on Pro
- Export deliverables to PDF, Markdown, or DOCX, or send as email from the workspace
About illumi
illumi is a web-based AI visual workspace for work that starts messy and ends as a deck, plan, report, or proposal. Instead of a linear chat thread, you spread notes, sticky notes, cards, prompts, research, and AI outputs across a spatial canvas, then group that material into context boards by topic. The differentiator is context control: you edit prompts, strip out noisy inputs, and decide which material each output should pay attention to, so a result reflects the context you chose rather than everything you have ever added. The same context can be run across 30+ models side by side — premium models including Claude 4.6 Sonnet, Claude 4.6 Opus, GPT-5.2, GPT-5.4, Gemini 1.5 Pro, Grok 4.1, DeepSeek R1, GPT-o3 pro, GPT Image 1.5, Nano Banana, and IMAGEN4 Ultra; standard models including Claude 4.5 Sonnet, Claude 4.5 Haiku, GPT-5, DeepSeek V3.2, Kimi K2.5, GLM 5, Grok 3, and Stable Diffusion 3.5; and five basic models (Claude 4, GPT-4.1, DeepSeek V3, Grok 4, Gemini 1.5 Flash) available on every plan. An AI crew feature lets you assign different models to different types of work, and a Draft Page captures quick notes before they land on a board. You can reference past work and pull live web results into active context. Collaboration shows the reasoning, not just the answer: shared viewers see inputs, prompts, and outputs, with read-only guest viewer links or editor publish rights depending on tier. Finished work exports to PDF, Markdown, or DOCX, or sends as email from inside the workspace. Plans run Starter at $0 forever, Pro at $12/mo billed annually or $16/mo monthly with a 14-day trial, a Team tier marked coming soon with pooled premium-model quota, and a custom Design Partner track. It is web-only, and there is no API or SDK.
Behind the Verdict
illumi's real argument is that the context behind an AI output is as valuable as the output, and that most tools throw it away the moment you start a new chat. The product backs that up with concrete mechanics: a spatial canvas of cards, sticky notes, and shapes; context boards that group work by topic; active context management so you can edit prompts and remove noisy inputs per output; and side-by-side multi-model comparison off one shared context. The AI crew feature, which assigns different models to different types of work, is the most interesting piece — it treats model choice as a per-task decision rather than a vendor loyalty question. Model coverage is unusually broad for a workspace tool, spanning premium (Claude 4.6 Opus, Claude 4.6 Sonnet, GPT-5.4, GPT-5.2, Gemini 1.5 Pro, GPT-o3 pro, Grok 4.1, Nano Banana, IMAGEN4 Ultra), standard (GPT-5, Claude 4.5 Sonnet, Kimi K2.5, GLM 5, Stable Diffusion 3.5), and five basic models on every plan including free. Strength: it is one of the few canvases where the AI layer and the thinking layer are the same surface, so drafting, comparing, and delivering do not require a handoff. Weakness: the whole thing lives in a browser tab, with no mobile or desktop app in evidence, and no API or SDK, so it cannot be wired into an automated pipeline. Team collaboration is also early — Team is listed as coming soon and synchronous co-editing is not part of the current picture, so distributed teams should treat it as async review rather than a live whiteboard. The premium quota is the quiet constraint: 20 premium-model requests per week on Pro is plenty for careful work and tight if you are benchmarking models for a living. History retention is a rolling window (7 days Starter, 60 Pro, 180 Team), so this is not an archive. Where it fits: consultants, strategists, founders, researchers, and workshop facilitators who need to show the reasoning behind AI-assisted work and then ship a document from the same place. Where it does not: developers needing programmatic access, teams that live on mobile, and anyone looking for a long-term notes database.
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Real-world workflow fit
Concrete scenarios for the personas illumi actually fits — and what changes day-one when you adopt it.
You dump client interview notes, a competitor teardown, and three prior proposals onto a canvas, group them into a context board, then run the same context through Claude 4.6 Opus and GPT-5.4 side by side to see which framing holds up.
Outcome: You pick the stronger direction, edit the prompt to drop the noisy inputs, and export the finished proposal to DOCX without rebuilding it in another tool.
Participants' notes go into a Draft Page during the session, then move onto a board where an AI crew assigns a fast model to clustering and a premium model to the summary.
Outcome: A structured workshop summary is ready while the session is still fresh, with the raw notes and prompts visible to anyone reviewing it.
You build a GTM board with positioning notes, past campaign results referenced from earlier boards, and live web results pulled into active context, then compare Gemini 1.5 Pro against Kimi K2.5 on the messaging draft.
Outcome: The team reviews the chosen draft with its full reasoning attached, and you export to PDF for the leadership deck.
Use Cases
- Synthesize scattered research notes and AI outputs into a structured report
- Plan a go-to-market strategy with team context kept alongside the prompts
- Develop client proposals by iterating on prompts and comparing model responses
- Capture workshop participant notes and turn them into a fast structured summary
- Refine content plans by managing which context each model output sees
- Build a working repository that keeps the reasoning behind each decision visible
- Assign different models to research, drafting, and image work via an AI crew
Models Under the Hood
as of 2026-09-24
Limitations
- Premium models (13 listed, including Claude 4.6 Sonnet/Opus, GPT-5.2, GPT-5.4, DeepSeek R1, GPT-o3 pro, Grok 4.1, Nano Banana, IMAGEN4 Ultra) are unavailable on the free Starter tier and, on Pro, carry a 20-per-week quota that is pooled across the team.
- Standard models (11 listed) are likewise unavailable on Starter.
- The Team plan is listed as 'Coming soon' with pricing TBA, and Design Partner pricing is custom.
- Collaborator limits per context board are 2 on Starter, 5 on Pro, and 20 on the pending Team plan.
as of 2026-09-22
Verification history
We have re-verified illumi 9 times since . Each pass re-reads the vendor's own pages and re-checks every listed field against that evidence; passes where nothing had changed are marked as such.
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
Showing the 6 most recent of 9 verification passes.
Free to cite with attribution — this page re-verifies continuously.
12-month cost
Project the real annual outlay, including the implied monthly cost when only an annual tier is published.
Vendor list price only. Add-on usage, seat overages, and contract minimums are surfaced under Hidden costs & gotchas.
Plans compared
For each published illumi tier: who it actually fits, and what it adds vs. the previous tier. Cross-reference the cost calculator above for projected annual outlay.
Starter
$0/mo
Ideal for
Solo consultant, researcher, or founder testing whether a spatial canvas beats a chat window for their work.
What this tier adds
Free entry point: canvas, five basic models, 5 context boards, viewer-only sharing, PDF/Markdown export, 7-day history.
Pro
$12/mo annual, $16/mo monthly
Ideal for
Independent professional or small team doing client deliverables who needs premium models and editable exports.
What this tier adds
Adds 13 premium and 11 standard models with a 20/week premium quota, 50 boards, 5 collaborators per board with editor rights, DOCX and email export, 60-day history.
Team
Coming soon ($TBA /seat/mo)
Ideal for
Departments of roughly 6-20 people who want one shared AI budget and a common set of working methods.
What this tier adds
Adds a pooled premium-model quota, 20 collaborators per context board, 200 boards, 180-day history, and custom exports.
Design Partner
Custom
Ideal for
Innovation or transformation teams running bespoke, high-volume AI work who need unlimited scale and custom retention.
What this tier adds
Adds unlimited collaborators and unlimited context boards, a flexible premium quota, and custom history retention and exports.
Where the pricing makes sense
The company stage and team size where illumi's pricing actually pencils out — and where peers do it cheaper.
Starter at $0 forever with five basic models is unusually generous for a canvas tool and undercuts what you would spend stacking a $20/mo chat subscription on top of a notes app. Pro at $12/mo annual ($16 monthly) is cheaper than most single-vendor premium chat plans while giving access to 30+ models. Small teams reviewing work async fit Pro; larger teams needing a pooled premium quota and 200 boards wait on the TBA Team tier.
Setup time & first value
How long it actually takes to get something useful out of illumi — broken out by persona, not the marketing-page minute.
Consultants and strategists: about 15 minutes to a usable board — sign up, start a context board, drop notes on the canvas, and run a first comparison. Workshop facilitators: plan 20-30 minutes to learn the Draft Page to board flow before a live session. Marketing and GTM teams: allow an hour to set up an AI crew and confirm which models handle which task.
Switching to or from illumi
How to bring data in from common predecessors and how to get it back out — written for the switcher, not the buyer.
- →From ChatGPT or Claude chat history: paste the prompts and outputs you still care about onto a canvas, then group them into a context board by topic.
- →From Notion: export pages to Markdown and import the text as cards, keeping the AI prompts next to the material they produced.
- →From Miro or FigJam: recreate the board structure with cards, sticky notes, and shapes, then attach the AI outputs you previously kept in a separate chat.
- →From a folder of research PDFs and docs: convert key sections to notes on a Draft Page, then promote them to a board once themes emerge.
- →From Google Docs proposals: pull each proposal into a context board so past work can be referenced into new drafts.
- ↗To Notion: export boards to Markdown and rebuild the page hierarchy, accepting that prompts and model comparisons will flatten into text.
- ↗To Google Docs: use PDF or DOCX export for finished deliverables, then edit the document by hand from there.
- ↗To a single-vendor AI chat: copy the prompts and context you want to keep, losing the side-by-side model comparison.
- ↗To email: send the finished deliverable directly from the workspace, but share the board itself only via guest viewer links.
- ↗To a spreadsheet or notes archive: export Markdown before your rolling history window expires, since retention is 7 to 180 days depending on tier.
Resources & Guides
Tutorials & Learning
YouTube returned 6 videos for “illumi”, and we withheld 6: 6 could not be judged, because “illumi” is a single word that other videos use for other things. We are showing none, because we could not prove any of them are about illumi.
Official links
Tools that pair well with illumi
Common stack mates teams adopt alongside illumi, with the specific reason each pairing earns its keep.
xeditai
Multi-model AI workspace where you draft, compare, and refine structured documents across ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini in one editable canvas.
Writingmate
Writingmate puts 350+ chat, image, and video models plus web search and files in one $20/month workspace.
Shortly AI
All-in-one AI chat workspace with 100+ models from Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, Mistral, DeepSeek and more for one flat subscription.
Featured Head-to-Head Comparisons
Illumi vs Gem
For hiring teams that need a complete AI-powered recruiting suite, Gem is the clear choice with its ATS/CRM and dedicated recruitment AI agents. For knowledge workers managing complex thinking and multi-model AI output, illumi offers a unique visual workspace at a lower cost. Choose Gem if you're in talent acquisition; choose illumi for general knowledge work with AI.
Illumi vs Letterhead
Choose illumi if you need an AI-powered spatial canvas to structure messy thinking and compare multiple AI models side-by-side — ideal for knowledge workers and strategists. Choose Letterhead if you're a team managing multiple newsletters and need an OS for production, analytics, and revenue — its AI agents and portfolio view are specialized for email operations. They solve fundamentally different problems, so your choice depends on whether your primary bottleneck is thinking or newsletter scaling.
Illumi vs Poke Interaction Co
illumi and Poke serve fundamentally different needs: illumi is a visual workspace for deep, structured thinking and multi-model AI comparison, ideal for knowledge workers who need to produce polished deliverables from messy research. Poke is a personal AI assistant for automating daily tasks and managing apps from your messaging app, perfect for reducing context switching. Choose illumi for strategy and synthesis; choose Poke for convenience and automation.
Alternatives to illumi
View all
xeditai
Multi-model AI workspace where you draft, compare, and refine structured documents across ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini in one editable canvas.
Writingmate
Writingmate puts 350+ chat, image, and video models plus web search and files in one $20/month workspace.
Shortly AI
All-in-one AI chat workspace with 100+ models from Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, Mistral, DeepSeek and more for one flat subscription.
Frequently Asked Questions
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