Amp Free (ampcode.com)

Amp announced Amp Free, a new ad‑funded mode that gives developers free access to its agentic coding assistant. You can enable it with /mode free in the CLI or by selecting “free” in the Amp editor extension. Technically it’s the same multi-component stack as the paid default (now called “smart”): a system prompt, toolset, and a curated mix of top open‑source models, discounted frontier models (including some pre‑release/test models), and agents optimized for code. Ads from dev/infra vendors (e.g., Axiom, Baseten, PlanetScale, Tailwind) fund the service; they’re targeted to your codebase, displayed separately from assistant output, and Amp can even help you try an advertiser’s product in your repo. To keep the mode free, Amp and its inference partners require the right to train on your free‑mode usage — opt out by not using free mode. This is significant because cheaper tokens and better agentic behavior in recent models make a viable ad‑supported tier possible, lowering the barrier to programmatic AI for many developers while letting Amp iterate quickly. Trade‑offs to note: model selection isn’t guaranteed (providers may request obfuscation), some models have limited context windows, there are rate and signup limits, and enterprise or workspaces that disable Training Mode can’t use it. Overall, Amp Free widens access to agentic coding but requires accepting ad targeting and training usage in exchange for zero cost.