Web access
Two different things happen when an answer needs the web, and each has its own rule.
- Reading a page you point the AI at is done on this computer: the page is downloaded here and read by whichever model answers. Each AI has a Web access switch for it.
- Searching the web is done by an online model, through your plan. It follows the AI's model setting: an AI on Auto - Online and Offline or a named online model may search; an Offline Only AI never does.
The Web access switch
Edit an AI and find Web access under Behavior: On or Off, on by default. The setting says it plainly: on, this AI can read web pages you point it to, downloaded on this computer, and searching the web needs this AI's models to include online ones; off, nothing from the web, whatever models answer.
With the switch off, a reply that needed the web says so in one line above the message box - "Answered without reading the page" or "Answered without looking online", "Web access is off for this AI" - with Turn on web access for this AI, Just this once, and Don't ask again for this AI. Just this once asks the same question again with the web allowed for that one turn, and the new answer replaces the old one.
When one page is not enough
Share an address and ask about it, and the answer is given in the chat with the page under Sources. When the page had little to read, the AI looks at up to three more pages on the same site, and with a plan searches the web once; the Sources panel says which it did.
Below the reply, Looked at one page offers Dig deeper: the same question handed to the Build helper, which reads on and searches when it needs to, with the web allowed for that one job. Without the helper installed, the line offers to install it.
What an agent may read
In a project or tools session the agent reads, without asking, only the addresses you typed and pages a page it already read links to. Any other address comes to you first as a permission card, "Read <address>", with Allow and Don't allow, on the page and in the activity tray; the rail keeps your answer as a receipt. See Permissions and approvals.
Questions about now
Ask an AI that cannot look things up - Offline Only, or no plan - about something current, and one line above the message box says the answer may be out of date: offline models can't look up live information. With a plan it offers Look it up online for this question and Let this AI go online, which sets the AI to Auto - Online and Offline. Without one it says online models can, as an optional paid service, and that everything offline stays free. Once per conversation, and never for a health question.
Offline Only, exactly
An Offline Only AI makes no request to any online model, ever, so it never searches. Reading a page you gave it is a download on this computer and stays with the Web access switch. Turn the switch off and nothing from the web reaches that AI at all.