diff --git a/docs/source/users/index.md b/docs/source/users/index.md
index 8beece4f6..5376c29b0 100644
--- a/docs/source/users/index.md
+++ b/docs/source/users/index.md
@@ -839,6 +839,16 @@ Aliases' names can contain ASCII letters (uppercase and lowercase), numbers, hyp
 
 Aliases must refer to models or `LLMChain` objects; they cannot refer to other aliases.
 
+To customize the aliases on startup you can set the `c.AiMagics.aliases` tratilet in `ipython_config.py`, for example:
+
+```python
+c.AiMagics.aliases = {
+  "my_custom_alias": "my_provider:my_model"
+}
+```
+
+The location of `ipython_config.py` file is documented in [IPython configuration reference](https://ipython.readthedocs.io/en/stable/config/intro.html).
+
 ### Using magic commands with SageMaker endpoints
 
 You can use magic commands with models hosted using Amazon SageMaker.
diff --git a/packages/jupyter-ai-magics/jupyter_ai_magics/magics.py b/packages/jupyter-ai-magics/jupyter_ai_magics/magics.py
index d605e37f2..e83d77d41 100644
--- a/packages/jupyter-ai-magics/jupyter_ai_magics/magics.py
+++ b/packages/jupyter-ai-magics/jupyter_ai_magics/magics.py
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
 from typing import Optional
 
 import click
+import traitlets
 from IPython import get_ipython
 from IPython.core.magic import Magics, line_cell_magic, magics_class
 from IPython.display import HTML, JSON, Markdown, Math
@@ -122,6 +123,19 @@ class CellMagicError(BaseException):
 
 @magics_class
 class AiMagics(Magics):
+
+    aliases = traitlets.Dict(
+        default_value=MODEL_ID_ALIASES,
+        value_trait=traitlets.Unicode(),
+        key_trait=traitlets.Unicode(),
+        help="""Aliases for model identifiers.
+
+        Keys define aliases, values define the provider and the model to use.
+        The values should include identifiers in in the `provider:model` format.
+        """,
+        config=True,
+    )
+
     def __init__(self, shell):
         super().__init__(shell)
         self.transcript_openai = []
@@ -145,7 +159,7 @@ def __init__(self, shell):
         self.providers = get_lm_providers()
 
         # initialize a registry of custom model/chain names
-        self.custom_model_registry = MODEL_ID_ALIASES
+        self.custom_model_registry = self.aliases
 
     def _ai_bulleted_list_models_for_provider(self, provider_id, Provider):
         output = ""
diff --git a/packages/jupyter-ai-magics/jupyter_ai_magics/tests/test_magics.py b/packages/jupyter-ai-magics/jupyter_ai_magics/tests/test_magics.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..ec1635347
--- /dev/null
+++ b/packages/jupyter-ai-magics/jupyter_ai_magics/tests/test_magics.py
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+from IPython import InteractiveShell
+from traitlets.config.loader import Config
+
+
+def test_aliases_config():
+    ip = InteractiveShell()
+    ip.config = Config()
+    ip.config.AiMagics.aliases = {"my_custom_alias": "my_provider:my_model"}
+    ip.extension_manager.load_extension("jupyter_ai_magics")
+    providers_list = ip.run_line_magic("ai", "list").text
+    assert "my_custom_alias" in providers_list