Private AI Assistant — No Cloud, No Data Sharing

Every mainstream AI assistant sends your data somewhere:

• ChatGPT — your prompts go to OpenAI's servers
• Claude — your conversations go to Anthropic's servers
• Copilot — your queries go through Microsoft's cloud
• Gemini — your data goes through Google's infrastructure

For most casual questions, this is fine. But the moment you want AI help with something sensitive — company financials, medical information, legal documents, private conversations — you're uploading that context to a third party.

A private AI assistant keeps everything on your device. The AI model runs locally. Your data stays local. Nothing gets uploaded, nothing gets logged on someone else's server.

How Private AI Actually Works in 2026

The hardware caught up. Modern laptops (especially Apple Silicon Macs, but also recent Intel/AMD machines) can run capable AI models locally. Here's the stack:

Local AI Models

• Ollama — runs open source models (Llama, Mistral, Phi) locally with a simple interface
• Apple Intelligence — Apple's on-device AI, built into macOS and iOS
• llama.cpp — bare-metal local inference for maximum performance

These models are smaller than GPT-4 or Claude, but for many tasks — summarization, search, Q&A over your documents, coding help — they're more than good enough.

The Missing Piece: Context

Here's what most "local AI" setups miss: the AI model runs locally, but what context does it have?

A local Ollama model can answer questions, but it doesn't know what you were doing today. It can't search your meeting notes. It doesn't know what was on your screen an hour ago. Without context, a local AI is just a chatbot that runs offline.

This is the problem Screenpipe solves.

Screenpipe: Private AI With Full Screen Context

Screenpipe captures your screen and audio continuously, stores everything locally, and makes it searchable through AI. When you ask a question, the AI has context from your actual work — not just from your prompt.

How it works:

1. Screenpipe runs in the background, capturing screen content (OCR) and audio (transcription)
2. All data stored in a local SQLite database on your device
3. You query using any AI model — local (Ollama, Apple Intelligence) or cloud (Claude, GPT) — your choice
4. The AI searches your screen history to answer with actual context

Example queries:

• "Summarize my meetings from today" — pulls from audio transcripts
• "What was the URL someone shared in Slack this morning?" — searches screen OCR
• "What code changes did I review yesterday?" — finds screen content from code review apps
• "Draft a follow-up email based on my 2pm call" — combines audio transcript with screen context

The difference from a bare chatbot is massive. Instead of "I don't have access to your meetings," you get actual answers based on what happened.

Privacy Architecture

• Zero cloud dependency — works completely offline
• Local storage — SQLite database on your machine
• Open source — MIT licensed, fully auditable
• Your choice of AI — use local models for complete privacy, or cloud models when you're comfortable
• No telemetry — no usage data sent anywhere

For a detailed look at the local AI setup, see the local AI assistant use case.

Compared to Cloud AI Assistants

	Screenpipe + Ollama	ChatGPT	Claude	Copilot
Processing	100% local	Cloud	Cloud	Cloud
Screen context	✅ Full history	❌	❌	⚠️ Limited
Audio context	✅ Transcripts	❌	❌	❌
Works offline	✅	❌	❌	❌
Data stays local	✅	❌	❌	❌
Open source	✅	❌	❌	❌
Price	$400 lifetime	$20/mo	$20/mo	$20/mo

Who Needs a Private AI Assistant?

Professionals With Sensitive Data

• Lawyers — attorney-client privilege means client data can't go to third-party servers
• Healthcare workers — HIPAA compliance requires data residency controls
• Financial advisors — client financial data under strict regulations
• Executives — strategic plans, M&A discussions, board materials

Privacy-Conscious Users

• People who don't want Big Tech indexing their daily computer usage
• Users in countries with strict data protection laws (GDPR, etc.)
• Anyone uncomfortable with sending screenshots of their entire workday to a cloud

Teams With Compliance Requirements

• SOC 2 compliance with data residency requirements
• Government agencies with classified information
• Companies with strict vendor security policies
• Organizations that can't use cloud AI due to NDA constraints

Getting Started With a Private AI Setup

Minimal setup (5 minutes):

1. Download Screenpipe
2. Install Ollama and pull a model (ollama pull llama3.2)
3. Configure Screenpipe to use Ollama as the AI backend
4. Start asking questions about your screen history — fully private, fully local

Enhanced setup:

• Connect Screenpipe to Obsidian for automatic daily notes
• Use Apple Intelligence on Mac for on-device processing
• Build custom workflows with the developer API

No subscription. No cloud. No data sharing. Just AI that works for you, on your machine.

Try Screenpipe →