diff --git a/private_gpt/components/llm/custom/ollama.py b/private_gpt/components/llm/custom/ollama.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..af4d3702
--- /dev/null
+++ b/private_gpt/components/llm/custom/ollama.py
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+from llama_index.llms.ollama import Ollama
+from pydantic import Field
+
+
+class CustomOllama(Ollama):
+    """Custom llama_index Ollama class with the only intention of passing on the keep_alive parameter."""
+
+    keep_alive: str = Field(
+        default="5m",
+        description="String that describes the time the model should stay in (V)RAM after last request.",
+    )
+
+    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs) -> None:
+        keep_alive = kwargs.pop('keep_alive', '5m')  # fetch keep_alive from kwargs or use 5m if not found.
+        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
+        self.keep_alive = keep_alive
+
+    def chat(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        kwargs["keep_alive"] = self.keep_alive
+        return super().chat(*args, **kwargs)
+
+    def stream_chat(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        kwargs["keep_alive"] = self.keep_alive
+        return super().stream_chat(*args, **kwargs)
+
+    def complete(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        kwargs["keep_alive"] = self.keep_alive
+        return super().complete(*args, **kwargs)
+
+    def stream_complete(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        kwargs["keep_alive"] = self.keep_alive
+        return super().stream_complete(*args, **kwargs)
diff --git a/private_gpt/components/llm/llm_component.py b/private_gpt/components/llm/llm_component.py
index 40c33c2d..9b9c46ce 100644
--- a/private_gpt/components/llm/llm_component.py
+++ b/private_gpt/components/llm/llm_component.py
@@ -108,7 +108,7 @@ class LLMComponent:
                 )
             case "ollama":
                 try:
-                    from llama_index.llms.ollama import Ollama  # type: ignore
+                    from private_gpt.components.llm.custom.ollama import CustomOllama  # type: ignore
                 except ImportError as e:
                     raise ImportError(
                         "Ollama dependencies not found, install with `poetry install --extras llms-ollama`"
@@ -125,14 +125,14 @@ class LLMComponent:
                     "repeat_penalty": ollama_settings.repeat_penalty,  # ollama llama-cpp
                 }
 
-                self.llm = Ollama(
+                self.llm = CustomOllama(
                     model=ollama_settings.llm_model,
                     base_url=ollama_settings.api_base,
                     temperature=settings.llm.temperature,
                     context_window=settings.llm.context_window,
                     additional_kwargs=settings_kwargs,
                     request_timeout=ollama_settings.request_timeout,
-                    keep_alive = ollama_settings.keep_alive,
+                    keep_alive=ollama_settings.keep_alive,
                 )
             case "azopenai":
                 try: