American AI startup Poolside launches free, high-performing open model Laguna XS.2 for local agentic coding

You know how name-brand medicine and generic medicine often have the same active ingredient, but one costs ten times more? That’s basically what’s happening in the AI coding tool space right now. The big players like OpenAI and Anthropic keep releasing expensive, closed-off models that you pay to access through their platforms. Meanwhile, a startup called Poolside just dropped a free, open model called Laguna XS.2 that you can actually run on your own computer, specifically designed to help with “agentic coding” — which just means AI that can take a series of steps to write, test, and fix code on its own, not just answer one question at a time.

Think of it like the difference between hiring a contractor who only works from their office and one who shows up at your place. Running AI locally on your own machine means your code never leaves your computer, no monthly subscription, and no internet required. For developers and small businesses handling anything sensitive — customer data, internal tools, proprietary logic — that privacy angle alone is worth paying attention to. Poolside is essentially betting that a lot of people don’t need the fanciest model in the world, they just need a good one that’s free and runs where they work.

So how do you actually use this to save or make money? Here are three realistic ideas. First, if you’re a freelance developer or small agency, you can use Laguna XS.2 locally to speed up repetitive coding tasks — writing boilerplate, generating tests, debugging — without adding a $20-$200/month AI subscription to your overhead. Second, if you run a small business with someone technical on staff, you could use this to build internal automation tools (think: auto-sorting emails, generating reports, syncing spreadsheets) without paying a developer’s full hourly rate for the straightforward parts. Third, if you’ve been curious about learning to code but felt priced out of AI tutoring tools, a free local model is a zero-cost way to start experimenting — ask it to explain code, suggest fixes, or walk you through building something small, all without a credit card.

The tools that used to cost hundreds of dollars a month are quietly becoming free, and the people who figure that out early are the ones who’ll have a real edge.