Local-first software is an effort to make collaboration software less dependent on cloud services, and Automerge is an open-source library for realising local-first software. In this talk I explain our motivation for creating Automerge, and map out 7 years worth of research projects that are feeding into this project. Recording of a talk given at the University of Cambridge SRG Seminars on 25 Nov 2021. https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/srg/seminars/