Build a Local AI Agent with Qwen 3.5 Small on macOS

Qwen 3.5 Small is a series of compact, high-performance models from Alibaba, available on Ollama, designed for efficient operation on devices ranging from laptops and Macs to mobile and IoT devices. These models are capable of handling multimodal input, native tool calling, and robust reasoning. In a demonstration, the Qwen 3.5:2b model runs entirely locally, accurately describing live camera feeds. The setup allows users to build a locally-run vision and voice agent in Python within minutes, leveraging Qwen 3.5 Small and Vision AI Agents. The system operates completely on the user's device without relying on cloud-based large language models, ensuring privacy and eliminating cloud costs. By using Ollama and Vision Agents, users can run sophisticated vision and voice agents on lightweight hardware, enjoying strong multimodal performance with minimal resource requirements.