Hermes Agent is an open-source AI agent developed by Nous Research. It reads files, runs scripts, finds information, and completes tasks from start to finish on the platforms your team already uses. This article explains what Hermes is, how it works, and six use cases where businesses can put it to work. For installation and support, see our page about the AI agent for your business.
Hermes Agent is an open-source AI agent. Instead of only answering questions in a chat, it can take action: read and edit files, run scripts, search the web, and verify results. Its code is open, so you are not tied to one vendor and can inspect how it works.
The agent also remembers what happened in earlier sessions. Decisions, project context, and agreed ways of working are saved, which helps keep later tasks consistent. For a closer look at the distinction, start with what an AI agent is or our comparison of Hermes vs ChatGPT and Copilot.
Hermes works with projects, knowledge, and tools. You open a project, give it a task, and the agent works out the steps it needs to take. You explicitly provide the tools and access; its actions are limited by the permissions you configure.
| Step | What Hermes does | Result |
|---|---|---|
Read context | The agent reads the project's files and context | Hermes knows what the project does and how it is organized |
Use tools | The agent uses tools you explicitly make available | Actions stay within the permissions you configure |
Complete the task | The agent completes the task and verifies its own result | You get a finished result, not a suggestion |
Remember decisions | The agent remembers decisions for later tasks | Later tasks become more consistent |
Hermes works on the platforms your team already uses, such as Telegram, Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, or Buzz. Individuals can also use Hermes Desktop, with the full toolset on their own workstation. For teams that need a shared environment, a shared Hermes installation often makes more sense: everyone talks to the same agent, with separate profiles and permissions.
Six practical business use cases, drawn partly from the official user stories and partly from our own use:
The agent reads an issue, investigates the codebase, writes the change, runs tests, and opens a pull request for human review. In the official user stories, a solo developer describes how Hermes handles most of the implementation of an entire app and creates tasks and deploys on its own; the developer handles the review through Telegram.
Scheduled tasks read sources you choose each day, from market figures to industry publications, and deliver a short summary through your team's channel. In the same user stories, someone working in construction summarized 82 messages from eleven WhatsApp groups into three lines. The agent reads the material; a person decides what to do with it.
Weekly reports, status updates, and KPI summaries do not have to stay manual. The agent retrieves figures from the sources you connect, such as spreadsheets, a CRM, or project management tools, and puts them in the same format each time. We explain what that looks like in practice in automating recurring tasks with AI.
Hermes searches documentation and earlier tickets, drafts responses, and flags anything that needs confirmation. This keeps first-line support moving without letting the agent send messages to customers unchecked: a person approves the answers. For a guide to setting up least-privilege access for this work, read our article on AI agents in customer service.
After completing work, the agent updates the documentation: decisions, procedures, and pitfalls are recorded in the project itself. That keeps knowledge from disappearing into separate chats and email threads. Our own Hermes installation at Voltti works the same way: the agent's work ends up in a readable project record.
For research tasks, the agent searches multiple sources, compares claims, and produces a summary with references. Our own agent has read-only access to Search Console, but rewrites articles directly in the CMS and sometimes publishes them itself. We review the work afterward and make corrections where needed. Read more about that process in SEO with an AI agent.
Do not start with the most impressive use case. Start with a task that already comes up often and has a clearly checkable result: a report that needs the same format every week, an inbox that needs a summary, or a check you currently do by hand. Start small, track what the agent delivers for a week, and only then expand. That first pilot follows a defined process; read more about our approach from pilot to ongoing support.
Hermes can do a lot out of the box, but a business environment needs more than an installation. Voltti provides:
Installation on a system at your business premises
Project, knowledge, and access configuration
Daily encrypted backups to a separate location on your network, and updates
Support for your team in Belgium and the Netherlands
Read more about what Voltti does or our approach from pilot to ongoing support.
Want to know how Hermes differs from ChatGPT? Read our comparison of Hermes vs ChatGPT and Copilot.
The agent itself is open source and free to use. Costs come from installation, support, and model usage. Voltti provides installation and support as a service; we always prepare a custom quote for your business.
No. ChatGPT provides a chat interface and can also perform tasks. Hermes is an agent you configure with tools to read files, run scripts, take actions, and verify results. For the full comparison, read Hermes vs ChatGPT and Copilot.
The Hermes environment runs locally. It can use an external language model. Fully offline use is possible with a local model, but it requires powerful hardware. For more on the choice between local and hybrid setups, read what stays local in a hybrid AI setup.
With the right setup: selected access, minimal permissions, human review of risky actions, and daily encrypted backups to a separate location on your network. Read more about our approach to security and privacy.
