When will Victron Energy create their on brand specific LLM?
I have used Copilot which is very helpful trying to find information but it comes up short stating that the Quattro supports ESS.
The Project Management Institute has their own subject specific one called Infinity.
Come on Victron Energy, make it easier for us please?
Hi @STosen,
I can say we have been on the cutting edge of LLM and AI research for over 3 years now.
We have several teams who are using AI tools internally, and regularly, and continuing to work towards making those public.
There have been at least 4 seperate distinctive training models and products developed in that time.
We have learned an enormous amount through that process.
Some key outcomes:
We have become very good at training models against our data set, and maintaining that data set in a consistent way.
We have testing protocols and parameters for validating the results of LLM models efficiently.
We have internal structures for how these products get developed, and identified where in our existing products and interfaces these tools make sense.
We have backend tooling and partnerships with key AI infrastructure developers to support ongoing LLM improvements and breakthroughs.
We have standards and risk profiles for where we can use 3rd party API driven LLMs and where we need to maintain security and privacy of user data with our own servers.
We will release our first public LLM/AI powered feature very shortly, it has had a long internal test, and then a limited private beta, and once those final known bugs are fixed it will be released.
I won’t reveal more than that yet, it has a very limited scope as to what it can do, but it is a powerful feature that makes life easier.
The number one reason you haven’t seen more from us, and why those many trained models and interfaces haven’t been released is that none of them have been good enough to be Victron quality.
They are all extremely convincing liars that lead people astray with very terrible advice confidently mixed in with plausible reasons.
That is somewhat acceptable from a general model interface like CharGPT or Grok, but unacceptable from a brand like Victron when that advice is specifically about our products, and has potentially deadly results
They are very useful in the hands of an already trained and experienced operator, who is able to quickly distinguish bad advice and just keep the good.
For that reason among the first models we are using are internal, to help support cases where the technician would be able to answer it themselves, but can save time by proof reading and correcting an AI assisted answer.
As those models are improved and iterated through that high skill oversight process, we will expand access to our network, and so on until potentially, eventually, maybe, it becomes good enough that we can trust it to the general public with no assumed knowledge.
I am also personally in testing of an AI supported feature in this community that reads all the new question submissions and then escalates enquiries when there are multiple similar cases with a summary of the commonalities.
So all to say we wish it was better, we aren’t blind to the progress, if anything we were too excited and ambitious at the rate of improvements to refinement and hallucination, but we will persist and soon have some fruit to show from our efforts.
The Quattro does support ESS though?
Maybe in some places it is not certified, but that is a different problem altogether.
Thank you Guy. Yes, good to know and you are quite correct about getting incorrect information as I have discoverred on other subject matters.
I still have my conversations in Copilit and will run them through the Victron Energy LLM when it becomes available to the public.
This is good news.
All MultiPlus/Quattros can be used for ESS it’s more a matter of local regulations if you are allowed to do it or not.
(certificates can be found at the product pages)
e.g. here in Germany you can only use the MultiPlus-II and Quattro-II without additional external equipment.
Some MultiPlus and Quattro can be used in combination with an external NS-protection and others not even with that.
I think that kind of question is hard/impossible for an AI to answer because it needs more than reading the Victron manuals.
You get an better answer if you ask a local Victron installer/distributor or here in the community.
From my reading, in South Africa, the Quattro does not support ESS, only the the Quattro II. They are also priced differently.
Copilot acknowledges this different when you challenge it.
A Victron Energy LLM can help with this. There is so much information and often a challenge to find that which relates to your requirements. Search engines like Google cannot do it.
The victron product pages have everything including manuals, documents and certification for applications. So no search or AI needed. It is all there.
The older quattro can be used with a Ziehl.
Matthias, thank you for your feedback.
I can assure AI is a lot easier.
I agree it can be a great tool. …with the exception of when it fails as it has in this instance. Or spews out misinformation it is picking up from the terrible fodder that is out there.
What I am saying is there is a legitimate source there that has it all in one place so not too much effort is needed. Sometimes it is just easier to go to the source.
Sorry to resurrect the issue. I have just seen this thread. The search here rejects “AI” as being too short (is it possible to make an exception for popular terms?) and Google just has too much spam.
In general I agree with Guy and others that AI can be convincingly wrong. But precisely for that reason, I would take Victron’s heavily censored AI over the likes of ChatGBT. Some teachers have banned AI from their classrooms, others have embraced it.
My own more elaborate views (and those of @lxonline) are documented in this thread How do you use AI? that has since been closed as not being Victron-related and not being “technical” enough (I disagree with both assessments).
I would suggest that Victron pins on this forum some guidance on use (or non-use) of AI.
Fideri
By the way Guy @guystewart
I’ve seen that you’ve deactivated the “Summary” platform’s feature.
It was a nice one, who helped one to see the essentials of a long thread…
If I may ask, why?
Thanks!
It has been part of our guidelines since the old forum, pinned in Q&A.
Human only
Please don’t post answers generated by AI models (such as chatGPT) - it is pretty obvious to the trained eye, the advice they give isn’t always wrong, but it’s never quite right. We’ll delete it and suspend, as it’s used by spam accounts.
It isn’t about the posts, it’s about a forum feature, just as shown in Alexandra’s picture above.
Now, for example it’s there, back… but only for this topic! For other topics, no… 
For example for a long topic like this one, there is not…
Confusing… 
A post was split to a new topic: Quattro DESS support
I am going to disagree with you Nick. I am finding more information on this Community using AI (purely to search for topics) and searching on this community website.
Once the Victron Energy has there LLM in place, those that make the effort to use it will see the value.
The are are many conversations I will be having. The current one I am dealing with is the optimising and understanding of ESS in respect of the Minimum SoC (unless the Grid Fails), the Active SoC, and the Mode.
What the Victron Energy will hopefully do (amongst others) is guide you through this process. I am looking forward to having the same conversation with the Victron Energy LLM and compare the result.
And the world is changing. We would be naive not to embrace the benefits of generative AI and at the same time be cautious.
Guy would not have alluded to AI would it not be of benefits and at some point in time, the rules for this Community will change.
To be comptetive in this marked Victron Energy is a leader, and would be naive not to embrace AI.
No idea what you are on about.
We have been clear about the AI vision, the team have tested iterations of LLM"s over the years, and they, to date, all had issues.
We use AI on this forum for various tasks.
The focus to produce a decent Victron LLM is underway, we will test this internally before releasing it into the wild.
It is prohibited here as a content producer, also due to experience and the great deal of effort that has gone into evaluating the tech in a technical environment.
It is most likely to be used by someone least qualified to analyse its response.
It produces good stuff but often lacks context or is overly generalised, so can give bad guidance.
You are welcome to use whatever you like for searching, but exercise caution when following the advice.
It is no different to the many youtube experts giving “advice” that is way incorrect.
The current tech is too immature to provide accurate answers for a complex environment like Victron.
From a personal level, as an IT specialist, we are focusing on enterprise AI deployments, so I am more than aware of the pros and cons.
Today, the issue isn’t the AI agent, it is people who blindly follow it and assume because they can write a prompt and get a response, that they are now experts.
Hence the guidance that prohibits posting non-human content will remain.
True, but…
Isn’t this also because of the not always so complete and/or good web content and/or documentation, from where the AI is drawing the answers?
If 100 people on the web will say that 2+2=4, then also the AI.
If the answer varies from 3.5 to 4.5, then also the AI will be “confuse”.
Just like us, layman people…
So, be clear and complete with the documentation and all will be OK.
Of course, indeed, with such lego-like ecosystem, this is difficult.
You, as in Victron and Victron experts are the victims of your own doing… 
