Zhipu AI chat: the web chat interface overview

The Zhipu AI chat product surface

Zhipu AI chat is the web chat interface for the Z.ai platform — distinct from the workflow patterns described on the chat Z AI page, this reference covers the interface itself.

The Zhipu AI chat interface is the primary product surface for users who want to interact with the GLM model family without any developer tooling. It is a full-featured web application rather than a minimal demo: signed-in accounts get persistent conversation history, a model picker that spans the current GLM variant lineup, a prompt recall system that surfaces recent inputs, and the ability to export individual conversations for archiving or sharing. Visitors who arrive without an account can start a conversation immediately, but without persistence or the full feature set.

The product relationship to the underlying platform is worth understanding. Zhipu AI chat is the consumer-facing product layer sitting on top of the same inference infrastructure that powers the Zhipuai API. The models are identical; what differs is the delivery mechanism, the session management, and the set of controls exposed. The Zhipu AI open platform is the developer-facing console for billing and key management; Zhipu AI chat is where end users and non-developers interact with the models directly.

Zhipu AI chat interface features

Five features define the Zhipu AI chat interface beyond basic text exchange — each is worth understanding before you rely on it for a workflow.

Conversation history

The Zhipu AI chat sidebar lists all conversations for the signed-in account in reverse chronological order. Each conversation is accessible with a single click and resumes exactly where it left off, including the full message thread and the model that was active at the last turn. The sidebar supports renaming conversations for organisation and deleting ones no longer needed. There is no hard cap on the number of stored conversations, though very old inactive threads may be subject to archival depending on account tier.

Model picker

The model picker in the Zhipu AI chat interface sits at the top of the conversation pane and lists the current GLM variant lineup. Switching models starts a new conversation; the prior conversation is not retroactively re-run with the new model. The picker shows the display name and a brief capability descriptor for each variant, which helps users choose between the general-purpose GLM-4.5+, the code-specialised variant, and the smaller faster variants suited for high-iteration drafting work.

Prompt history and recall

Zhipu AI chat surfaces a prompt history feature that lists recent inputs from the current account. This is separate from conversation history — it shows individual prompts rather than full conversation threads, making it useful for recalling and reusing prompts across different conversations or model variants. The prompt history list is accessible from the input area and supports a simple search filter for longer prompt libraries.

Conversation export

Signed-in accounts can export individual conversations from the Zhipu AI chat interface in plain text or markdown format. The export option appears in the conversation action menu alongside rename and delete controls. Markdown export preserves code blocks, headers, and list formatting from model responses; plain text export strips formatting for compatibility with downstream tools that do not parse markdown.

System prompt field

The system prompt field in Zhipu AI chat accepts a persistent instruction that frames the entire conversation. It is exposed in the conversation settings panel rather than inline in the message thread. Changes to the system prompt take effect from the next turn; they do not retroactively alter prior responses in the thread.

Browser support for Zhipu AI chat

The interface is tested on current versions of major browsers — streaming responses depend on a Fetch streaming capability that all modern browsers support.

The Zhipu AI chat interface runs on current versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. Streaming responses — where model output appears token-by-token as it is generated — require a browser that supports the Fetch streaming API. All modern desktop and mobile browsers released after 2022 satisfy this requirement. Internet Explorer is not supported; legacy Edge (EdgeHTML engine) is also unsupported. Mobile browsers on iOS Safari and Android Chrome both work; the interface adapts to narrower viewports with the sidebar collapsing to a hamburger menu.

JavaScript must be enabled; the interface is a single-page application that does not render meaningfully without it. For users who require a no-JavaScript fallback, the Zhipuai API is the appropriate alternative for programmatic access without a browser-rendered UI.

Accessibility profile

The Zhipu AI chat interface meets the core practical accessibility requirements for keyboard and screen reader users, with some caveats on dynamic content announcements.

Keyboard navigation works throughout the main application: Tab moves focus through interactive elements in a logical order, Enter activates buttons and links, and the text input field receives focus automatically when a conversation opens. The model picker and conversation history list are both keyboard-navigable. Focus is managed correctly after model switching — the interface moves focus to the first element of the new conversation rather than leaving it stranded on the picker control.

Colour contrast ratios in the default theme meet WCAG 2.1 AA requirements for normal-sized text across the main interface elements. The streaming response area is announced to screen readers as content arrives, though the per-token update frequency can produce noisy live region behaviour on some screen reader and browser combinations. For accessibility-sensitive deployments, waiting for the full response to complete before reading is a more reliable pattern than consuming the live stream. Research from W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative provides the full technical standard that informed these interface decisions.

Zhipu AI chat feature availability

Feature availability varies between guest sessions and signed-in accounts — a summary of the five key features across both access modes.