Last checked: October 12, 2026.
Kimi AI is an AI assistant developed by Moonshot AI. You can use it to answer questions, improve writing, analyze documents, research the web, and create work such as presentations, spreadsheets, and websites. It supports English, so you can begin with an ordinary written request. The official product overview explains its main capabilities.
To try it, open the official Kimi website. Start with a small task whose result you can check, such as rewriting a paragraph or planning a meeting. You can explore the more involved research and creation tools once you know what you want the assistant to produce.
The Kimi app and the models behind it are related but different. The app provides the interface, tools, file handling, and account features. A model is the underlying AI system. That distinction matters when comparing a Kimi subscription, a developer API, or another service that uses a Kimi model.
How to start using Kimi AI
The browser is a convenient starting point because it requires no desktop installation. The public website provides a New chat option; some features require an account, according to the service terms.
- Open the official website and start a chat. Sign in if the service requests it for your chosen task.
- Describe one clear outcome. Say what you need, who it is for, and how the answer should be organized.
- Supply relevant context. Paste the passage you want improved or attach a document when the task depends on a file.
- Review and refine the answer. Correct missing context and ask for a specific revision instead of restarting with a vague request.
Try this starter prompt:
Help me plan a 30-minute team meeting about a delayed project. Create a short agenda, list the decisions we need to make, and identify the information you need before suggesting deadlines or assigning responsibilities. Separate confirmed information from assumptions.
This example needs no prepared file. Check whether the proposed agenda fits the meeting length and whether the assistant has invented project details. A useful follow-up is: “Reduce the agenda to four items and put the most urgent decision first.”
For ongoing work that reuses the same files and instructions across several conversations, see our Kimi Projects guide.
What can you use Kimi for?
Choose the route according to the result you need. A chat response may be enough for an explanation; a downloadable workbook or presentation needs a creation workflow. Kimi’s feature catalog groups these tasks into tools such as Docs, Sheets, Slides, Build, and Deep Research.
| Your goal | What to provide | Relevant route and output |
|---|---|---|
| Improve writing or translate text | The text, audience, tone, and intended meaning | Chat for a revised draft or explanation |
| Understand a document | A supported file and specific questions | File analysis in chat for summaries and answers |
| Investigate a topic | A focused question, scope, and source requirements | Web search or Deep Research for a sourced answer or report |
| Create a document | A brief, notes, or reference material | Docs for a Word or PDF deliverable |
| Build a spreadsheet | Data, calculation rules, and the required layout | Sheets for an Excel workbook |
| Prepare a presentation | The audience, key points, and supporting material | Slides for an editable presentation |
| Create a website | Its purpose, content, pages, and required behavior | Build for a website preview and publishing workflow |
You may also see the term agent. Here, it means software that can plan steps and use tools to work toward your requested outcome. Give an agent a clear deliverable and boundaries, particularly when a task involves several files or external information.
Read PDFs and ask questions about files
Kimi’s capability guide lists support for PDFs, Word documents, spreadsheets, presentations, images, and other formats. It currently states a limit of 100 MB per file and 50 files at a time. These are upload limits; they do not establish a guaranteed number of PDF pages that will be understood exhaustively.
For a report, ask a question that requires evidence from the document:
Use only the attached report. Summarize its three most important findings, then identify the supporting section or page where you can reliably locate it. Separate the report’s statements from your interpretation. If a passage is unreadable or the document does not answer a question, say so instead of filling the gap.
Open the original file and check the passages behind any important conclusion. Pay particular attention to tables, footnotes, and scanned pages. If an answer appears incomplete, narrow the question to a named section or provide a clearer copy of the relevant pages.
Research the web with a defined question
Kimi documents web search and webpage retrieval, including source links. Its Deep Research workflow combines planning, searching, and report creation. A focused factual question suits a brief search-backed answer; a question with several connected parts may justify a research report.
Our Kimi Deep Research guide covers scoping a report and checking its citations.
Example research prompt:
Research what a five-person team should check before choosing project-management software. Use current official product documentation for feature claims. Organize the answer around task ownership, recurring work, guest access, and exporting data. Link the sources, distinguish facts from your recommendations, and mark anything you could not verify.
Inspect the source pages behind the claims that affect your decision. Check their dates, applicable plans, and whether they actually support the answer. Kimi’s search documentation notes that restricted or dynamically rendered pages may be difficult to retrieve, so a missing detail is not proof that a feature does not exist.
Create files, presentations, and websites
Specify the deliverable explicitly: “Create an editable Excel workbook” is more useful than “Organize this data.” The Docs and Sheets documentation describes Word, PDF, and Excel outputs, while Kimi Slides supports editable presentations and PowerPoint export.
Open the resulting file in the application you intend to use. Check page breaks in documents, formula references and totals in spreadsheets, and text overflow in slides. Reading an uploaded file and producing a new editable file are separate tasks; tell Kimi which one you need.
Build provides website generation, online preview, and publishing, with support for functionality such as databases and authentication. Before sharing a site, inspect its pages and test the actual behavior of navigation, forms, and any login or data features.
For visual work, distinguish understanding an uploaded image, searching for existing images, and generating new ones. Kimi’s capability documentation describes image, audio, and video generation through plugins. Access to a model that understands images does not, by itself, establish access to an image-generation workflow.
Is Kimi AI free? Plans and usage limits
Kimi advertises free access to K2.6, with paid plans available. Its current usage rules also state that K2.6 Chat consumes membership credits. Check the model access and remaining allowance shown in your account; the available documentation does not establish one universal free-message allowance for every user.
Our Kimi pricing guide separates memberships, shared credits and API billing.
The following prices are listed on the international membership pricing page. Amounts are in US dollars.
| Plan | Monthly billing | Annual billing |
|---|---|---|
| Plus | $19 per month | $180 per year |
| Pro | $39 per month | $372 per year |
| Max | $99 per month | $948 per year |
| Ultra | $199 per month | $1,908 per year |
Annual plans charge the annual total upfront. Membership credits still refresh monthly, and unused monthly credits do not roll over. Confirm the applicable price and billing terms at checkout. Existing subscribers may see legacy names such as Moderato or Allegretto, which have their own transition rules.
How credits affect everyday use
Kimi’s membership tools share a credit pool, including research, file creation, Kimi Work, and Kimi Code. Consumption depends on the model, input and output, context, and tools used. A short rewrite and a substantial research task therefore should not be treated as equivalent units of usage. Kimi Code also has plan-dependent usage windows in addition to the shared credit balance.
Before upgrading, identify the constraint you are actually reaching: unavailable functionality, insufficient credits, or a usage window. Review the account’s subscription and usage information after a few representative tasks. Pay for the allowance and features your work requires; a higher plan does not remove the need to check the output.
Kimi Work, Kimi Code, or the web app?
These products serve different workflows. The official product comparison separates the online assistant, the desktop agent, and the developer coding tools.
- Use the web app for general assistance. It is a practical entry point for questions, writing, uploaded documents, and supported research or creation tasks.
- Consider Kimi Work for tasks involving your computer’s files. The desktop workflow can connect selected local folders. Review the scope of the files you make available. Local folder access does not mean the underlying AI runs entirely offline.
- Consider Kimi Code for software-development work. It provides dedicated coding workflows, including terminal and editor integrations. Asking chat to explain a function is a simpler task than giving a coding tool access to a repository. Review proposed changes and run relevant project checks before accepting them.
Use the official download hub for mobile and desktop access. It lists mobile apps and states that Work mode is available on Windows and Apple-silicon Macs; the Intel Mac desktop version supports Chat only. Check the download intended for your device instead of assuming every desktop version includes the same tools.
For device-by-device guidance, use our Kimi download guide to distinguish Chat, Work, and mobile access before choosing an installer.
Developers building their own applications need a separate distinction: the Kimi Open Platform API uses pay-as-you-go billing. A consumer membership does not turn into API balance, and Open Platform and Kimi Code API keys are not interchangeable. You do not need an API key to start an ordinary chat on the website.
Which Kimi model should you choose?
The current getting-started guide positions K2.6 for everyday chat and questions, K3 for more involved chat and agent work, and K3 Swarm for larger searches or batches of parallel work. Your account’s available choices and allowances determine what you can actually use.
Use our Kimi model guide to distinguish app choices, API IDs and coding models.
For a first rewrite, explanation, or planning task, start with an available general chat option. For editable files, Kimi’s guide recommends K3 or K3 Swarm; it describes K2.6’s chat output as text, including outlines and code. Choose an option available to your account and check its allowance. Reserve more involved workflows for tasks that benefit from them, and compare both the usefulness of the result and the credits consumed.
Is Kimi open source? Be precise about the object being discussed. Moonshot AI describes K3 as an open-weight model, meaning its trained model weights are published for use under the applicable license. That does not make the hosted Kimi app open source or include free hosting. Anyone considering self-hosting should check that model’s license, hardware requirements, and deployment instructions separately.
Privacy and reliability: what to check
For the international service covered here, the terms identify Singapore-based NOVASCENT PRIVATE LIMITED as the provider. Moonshot AI is the developer named in the product overview. Read the policies attached to the service you actually use, particularly if you access a third-party app built with a Kimi model.
The current privacy policy includes prompts, uploads, and generated content among the information processed to provide and improve the service, including model training. The terms describe a contact-based training opt-out that applies prospectively. Opting out does not require removal of content already used in earlier training cycles.
Before uploading work documents, check that you have permission and that the service meets your organization’s requirements. Share only the material needed for the task. A training opt-out addresses a particular use of content; it is not a promise of immediate deletion or entirely local processing.
For a broader review of training, retention, regional policies, and tool permissions, read our Kimi privacy and safety guide.
For reliability, match the review to the output: verify quotations against the document, open sources behind current claims, reconcile spreadsheet calculations, and inspect generated code before running it. If you cannot verify a consequential claim, keep it marked as unresolved instead of treating a confident answer as confirmation.
Is Kimi AI a good fit for your work?
Based on its documented features, Kimi is worth considering if you want to move between writing, document analysis, research, and file creation within one service. Its usefulness for you depends on how well it handles your actual inputs, the corrections its outputs need, and the allowance available on your account.
Try a familiar, non-sensitive task with a clear success condition: a summary that preserves the important qualifications, a presentation that opens cleanly, or a workbook whose calculations you can reproduce. Assess the result against that condition before expanding the workflow or buying a larger plan.
If your work requires offline processing, specific data controls, or dependable integration with an existing system, verify those requirements before committing. Start at the official Kimi website with one useful task, then choose the tools and subscription that support the work you actually do.
Frequently asked questions about Kimi AI
Is Kimi AI free to use?
Kimi advertises free access to K2.6, alongside paid memberships. Its current credit rules also cover K2.6 Chat, so free access should not be interpreted as unlimited use. Check the model access and remaining allowance displayed in your account before starting a substantial task.
Can I use Kimi AI in English?
Yes. Kimi supports English conversations, and English is among the interface languages listed in its capability guide. You can write your request in English and ask for an English response. There is no need to translate your prompt into Chinese first.
Do I need an account to use Kimi?
Kimi’s terms of service allow some access without an account, while certain features require registration. Open the official website and follow any sign-in request for the feature you want to use. A publicly visible chat interface does not establish that every task can be completed while signed out.
Can I give Kimi a PDF or webpage link instead of uploading a file?
Yes, when the content is accessible. Kimi’s URL retrieval tools can read public webpages and online PDFs. Password-protected, restricted, or dynamically loaded pages may be inaccessible or incomplete. If Kimi cannot read the link, upload a file you are allowed to share or paste the relevant passage, then ask it to work from that material.
Can Kimi AI generate images?
Yes, through supported image-generation plugins. Kimi’s getting-started guide instructs users to select the relevant plugin and use it with K3. Generating a new image is a different function from analyzing an uploaded image or searching for existing pictures. Check the feature access and credits available in your account.
Why did Kimi return text instead of a downloadable file?
You may be using a text-response workflow. Kimi’s current chat guide distinguishes K2.6’s text replies from K3’s editable deliverables and recommends K3 or K3 Swarm for complex file creation. Choose an available creation workflow and explicitly request the format you need, such as a Word document, Excel workbook, or PowerPoint presentation.
Does a paid Kimi membership include API credits?
No. The Kimi Open Platform API uses separate pay-as-you-go billing, and consumer membership benefits do not convert into Open Platform balance. Check the balance and billing information in the developer platform when planning API usage.
Does Kimi use my chats and uploaded files for training?
For the international Kimi service, the privacy policy includes prompts, uploads, and generated content among the information used to improve and train its models. The terms describe a training opt-out available by contacting the provider. It applies going forward and does not reverse previous training use.