Paperless AI v2.7.1 – New Features and Improvements
Overview of Changes
Paperless AI v2.7.1 is a substantial update bringing both new features and enhancements for users and developers. This release merges a series of development updates into the main branch (via PR #394 and #395) to deliver improvements including:
- Azure OpenAI Service Integration – a new provider option to use Microsoft’s Azure-hosted OpenAI models.
- Structured Output Implementation – the AI’s responses can now be returned in a consistent, structured format (e.g. JSON) for easier parsing.
- DeepSeek-R1 Model Support – compatibility with the advanced DeepSeek-R1 large language model, expanding the range of AI models you can use.
- Various UI refinements, bug fixes, and performance tweaks carried over from the development branch merge.
These changes aim to improve Paperless AI’s flexibility (supporting more AI backends), reliability of AI outputs, and overall user experience.
🔹 Azure OpenAI Integration
What’s new: Paperless AI now supports Azure OpenAI, allowing users to connect to Microsoft's hosted AI models, such as GPT-4 deployed on Azure.
Technical details:
- A dedicated “Azure” provider option has been added in the settings.
- Uses Azure’s API structure (via the
AzureOpenAIclass). - Requires Azure-specific settings like Resource Name, Deployment ID, and an API Key.
Impact:
- Enterprise users can now leverage Azure’s AI models with better availability and higher context limits (depending on Azure’s offering).
- Developers gain first-class support for Azure OpenAI, simplifying integrations.
- Contributed by @mb-ai-dev in PR #378.
🔹 Structured Output Implementation
What’s new: AI-generated responses can now be returned in a structured format (like JSON), making it easier for automated processing and data extraction.
Technical details:
- The AI can now return structured JSON responses instead of plain text.
- Improves document metadata extraction by ensuring a predictable format.
- Reduces manual parsing and makes AI output more machine-readable.
Impact:
- Users will receive clean, structured data from AI responses, reducing the need for manual corrections.
- Automations and integrations with Paperless-ngx become more reliable.
- Improves data accuracy for document categorization, tagging, and metadata handling.
🔹 DeepSeek-R1 Model Support
What’s new: Paperless AI now supports DeepSeek-R1, a powerful open-source LLM known for strong reasoning and coding capabilities.
Technical details:
- Works via both local deployments (e.g., Ollama) and API endpoints.
- Uses the OpenAI API format, making it easy to integrate.
Impact:
- Users can now choose DeepSeek-R1 as an alternative to OpenAI models.
- Ideal for those wanting a self-hosted AI solution with advanced reasoning.
- Expands model flexibility, keeping Paperless AI open to multiple AI backends.
🔹 Usability, Performance, and AI Model Compatibility
- More AI model choices – OpenAI, Azure, DeepSeek, and local models all work seamlessly.
- Faster, structured AI responses – reduces unnecessary AI hallucinations and improves automation workflows.
- More reliable error handling – better logging and debugging when using different AI providers.
- Future-proofed AI pipeline – with structured outputs and wider model support, Paperless AI is becoming a more robust document AI solution.
🌟 Community Contributions
This release was made possible thanks to contributions from the community:
- @mb-ai-dev made their first contribution by implementing Azure OpenAI support (PR #378).
- Feature requests from the community directly influenced the addition of structured outputs and DeepSeek-R1 support.
- Thanks to all contributors who tested and provided feedback!
What's Changed
- Merge latest version to dev by @clusterzx in #394
- Merge pull request #394 from clusterzx/main by @clusterzx in #395
- Add support for Azure OpenAI by @mb-ai-dev in #378
- Implemented Structured Output
- Added Deepseek-r1 support
New Contributors
- @mb-ai-dev made their first contribution in #378
Full Changelog: v2.6.7...v2.7.1