What's new in Aori v0.4.0
Aori v0.4.0 is not a giant “everything is solved now” release. It is a quieter one, but it changes the shape of the app in a way that matters.
The focus this time is simple: Aori should feel more like your assistant, and it should be able to work with the notes and knowledge you already have.
That means three things landed together: Personas, Obsidian, and Notion.
Personas
Section titled “Personas”Personas are the most visible change.
Until now, Aori mostly behaved like one assistant. That works for basic use, but it is not how people actually use AI day to day. Sometimes you want a practical assistant. Sometimes you want a more casual companion. Sometimes you want a very specific voice for a specific workflow.
In v0.4.0, Aori supports custom Personas. There are Assistant and Friend-style presets to start from, and you can create your own.
You can also switch Personas with slash commands, including from the in-app chat and supported external channels. That matters because the Persona should follow the conversation you are actually having, not be trapped inside one settings screen.
Obsidian
Section titled “Obsidian”Obsidian support is another big step toward making Aori useful with real personal context.
You can point Aori at an Obsidian vault and let it use that vault as a knowledge source. Aori can read, index, and search supported notes, then bring the relevant pieces into a conversation when you ask for them.
It can also create new notes or append to notes where the feature allows it. The important boundary is that Aori is not meant to autonomously delete or directly rewrite your existing notes. Your vault is still your vault.
This is the kind of feature that is easy to overhype, so I will keep it plain: if you already use Obsidian, Aori can now start to become useful around the notes you already have instead of asking you to move everything somewhere else.
Notion
Section titled “Notion”Notion is now supported too.
The idea is similar, but the shape is different because Notion is a cloud workspace. You can connect a Notion account and let Aori use allowed pages or workspace content as a knowledge source.
That makes Aori more useful for people who keep project notes, docs, planning pages, or lightweight databases in Notion. Ask a question, and Aori can use the connected Notion knowledge instead of relying only on the current chat.
Because Notion is a cloud integration, the usual data-flow rules still apply. Aori can access what you authorize, and if you use a cloud AI provider for a request, relevant context may be sent to the provider you selected.
Why this release matters
Section titled “Why this release matters”Personas make Aori feel less generic. Obsidian and Notion make it less empty.
That combination is the point of v0.4.0. A personal AI app needs more than a chat box. It needs a way to adapt to the kind of conversation you want to have, and it needs access to the places where your actual context lives.
Aori is still in public beta. Some parts are rough, and release builds are still being prepared. But this release makes the direction clearer: local-first where it can be, connected where you choose, and personal without trying to own all of your data.
— The Aori Team