The journey.
From a rough side-project to a production AI assistant used daily at Memo Fashion. 17 months of research, engineering and refinement — all done in-house.
Research begins
Early experiments with open-source language models. Comparing architectures, evaluating output quality, measuring latency.
First internal prototype
A bare-bones chat interface wired to a single model. No streaming, no memory — but it could hold a short conversation.
Multi-model cascade architecture
Moved from a single model to a fallback chain. If one engine is rate-limited, the next takes over seamlessly.
Streaming responses
Word-by-word output. Tokens appear as they're generated. Server-Sent Events pipeline built from scratch.
Session memory & history
Conversations now persist across reloads. Multiple chats per user, full history, auto-generated titles.
Document understanding
PDF reading capability added. Upload an invoice, a contract — AI extracts and summarises.
Vision capability
Image understanding added. Describe a product photo, OCR a receipt, analyse a moodboard.
Web search integration
Live web search triggers automatically on current-events questions. Real-time knowledge.
Image generation engine
Generate visuals from text prompts. Built to handle unlimited requests at zero cost.
Excel & Word I/O
Ask for a table — get a real downloadable .xlsx file. Ask for a letter — get a .docx.
Voice input
Speak your message — local transcription. Fast, private, accurate.
Custom instructions & tone
Personal context applied to every chat. Tone selector for every reply.
PWA & mobile experience
Installable on phones, tablets, desktop. Offline-capable. iOS notch handling.
Multi-file attachments
Attach up to 10 files per message. Mix images, PDFs, Excel, Word.
PDF export pipeline
AI-generated content downloadable as real A4 PDFs. Print-ready, branded.
Temporary chat mode
Private chats that don't save anywhere. For when you need to think out loud.
Closed beta with the Memo team
Internal rollout to early testers. Feedback gathered, bugs squashed, UX refined.
Company-wide trial launch
Memo AI rolled out to every member of the Memo Fashion team on 13 April 2026.
Dedicated home at ai.memo.co.uk · v2.0145
Memo AI now lives on its own domain with a premium interface. Current production version: 2.0145.