Using ENVI and IDL Agents with Your Own API Keys

Earlier this year, we introduced the ENVI^® Agent and IDL^® Agent to bring intelligent, AI-driven automation to your geospatial and data science workflows. If you missed the launch, you can catch up on the full breakdown by watching our release webinar.

Both agents are built upon GitHub Copilot, a powerful AI orchestration framework, which required you to have GitHub and GitHub Copilot accounts. This has since changed and is much more open and flexible.

Now, you can use your own OpenAI or Anthropic API keys with the agents, completely bypassing the need for a GitHub Copilot account or subscription. Adding an API key is easy and only requires a few steps:

Here’s an example of what model selection looks like with OpenAI as a provider.

With your own API key connected, you have direct access to the latest models from OpenAI or Anthropic without any intermediary subscription.

Another exciting change with this update — you can now connect to a locally running LLM through Ollama. With a powerful GPU, you can run models such as Gemma 4 on your device. This helps keep any data local which supports privacy and can operate in disconnected environments.

Here’s an example of Gemma 4 generating a land cover classification image using machine learning:

We’re excited to see how these new configuration options streamline your workflows and enable our agents to run in different environments.

Happy Agent-ing!