NEW Hermes Agent V0.22 Update just dropped (FREE!)

Julian Goldie (0:00)

Hermes AI Agent 0.22 just dropped, and the biggest change is who gets to use it. So yesterday, news research shipped Hermes Agent V022. They call it the threshold release. And for the first time, you can actually open up Hermes on a brand new computer and start talking to it before you've paid for anything. So there's no API, there's no settings screen, there's no setup guide. It says self-op, it asks your name, asks which apps you use, and then it hands you four first jobs to try. So if you've ever looked at AI agents before, that's for tech people, not for me. This update was built for you. By the end of this video, you'll know what changed, why it's a much bigger deal than it looks, and the simple way I think about it so you can actually use it in your business. And I call it the front door engine. Three moves, you walk in, you plug in, and you hand off. And I'll break each one down in a minute. And the third one is where it gets really useful for a business. But first, let's talk about size. So this one release has about 24,200 code changes, around 6,080 merged updates, roughly 7,180 problems fixed, and around 2,520 people helped build it. News says it's about 2.5 times bigger than the last big release, and the code got a third smaller at the same time. Bigger but lighter.

And then this morning, with a small follow up, landed version 0.22.1 with fixes for the Windows Store version and a cleaner model picker. So the team is still moving fast. Now, there's one line in the release that sums up the whole update. Everybody wrote that the last version assembled the Pantheon and this version is about getting through the door. That's the whole idea. Hermes already has a lot of power. Now they're making it easier to reach. So what was the problem before? Well, for most people, the hard part of an AI agent has never been the agent. It's the first hour you download it and ask for an API key. And then most people stop right there. Because what even is that for most people? Now, if you want to do one of that, by the way, an API key is like a secret password you buy. It lets an app talk to an AI brain like Claudochad GPT, and you have to go to another website, make an account, add a card, copy a long string of letters and paste it in the right spot. If you get one letter wrong, nothing works, and then you have to set up your apps, and then your plugins, and then figure out which model to pick. And then most people never get passed out. They close the window and go back to doing the work by hand. So the power was already there, but the door was just hard to open. When I've helped business owners get started with AI agents, it's almost never the big stuff that stops them.

It's a boring setup stuff, a key, a flower, a setting. One small thing, and they're stuck. Version 0.22 goes straight after that problem.

And here's what's actually different. First, the setup is a chat now. So when you open the desktop app on a computer that's never had Hermes on it, it doesn't show you a settings page. It starts talking one card at a time. It asks your name, picks an accent color, picks a layout, asks which apps to connect, asks which plugins you want, gives you a quick tour, and then offers up to four first tasks picked for you. And all that runs on a free trial mode called Welcome. So you don't need it to start. You can skip at any time, and you can run it again later from your settings. There's also a fun little extra. You can now just type Make It Violet Dark Mode, and Hermes actually changes his own look. Small thing, but it shows you the direction, so you can talk to it, and it does set up for you. Second, Hermes now works inside the apps you already use. They call these connectors, so you can ask for an app, say Notion, you sign in once in your browser, and the tools work in that same chat, so you don't need a news account. The first time you connect an app, Hermes makes a free account just for connectors, and you can connect more than one account for the same app.

Work one and a home one, for example, both live side by side. Third, and this is the one a lot of people will miss, is that Hermes can now run AI models fully on your own computer. Nothing leaves your machine, no account, no key. So it checks your computer's memory and graphics chip, scores every model in a list, and then picks the best one on your machine that you can actually handle. Downloads can pause and pick back up, and it works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. In other words, before you had to bring your own AI brain, now Hermes can bring one for you. You can run one at home or on your own computer. So let's say, for example, you give Hermes a list of Client Notes to start, it does the job on your own laptop with none of it sent anywhere. So that's what changed. Now, let me show you how I think about it, because this is how you can actually get value from this. The front door engine, free Moose. Move number one is walking. So this is everything that gets you from zero to talking with Hermes, to set up the chat, the free welcome model, the local model, signed apps for Windows and Mac, including the Microsoft Store now that come with everything they need already inside. Hermes News Research already says, the first launch now builds nothing. So you open it and it's ready. Updates get safer as well. So Hermes now ships tested stable versions by default. Every release gets checked on every type of computer before it goes out. If an update fails halfway, it can't leave you stuck with a broken half version anymore. Only switches over once the new version passes its checks. Why does that matter to you? Because the number one reason people give up on agents is something breaking on Tuesday when they're busy. Walking is about it just working. Moving number two is plugin. Once you're inside, the agent is only as useful as what it can reach. And this release opens up a lot. There's now a plugin catalog with 600 plugins. Each one is checked and locked to a reviewed version. So you can browse them by category, by how popular they are. There are memory plugins from companies like Memu and Super Memory.