The Geode Manifesto: Why absolute data sovereignty requires a fully on-device architecture.
——By the Geode Team
Let’s talk about the invisible person in the room.
You’re in a high-stakes meeting—an M&A negotiation, a client deposition, a board discussion. You press “Record” on your transcription tool.
At that moment, the audio leaves the room. It travels across the internet, lands on a server you don’t control, is processed by algorithms you didn’t approve, and may be stored under evolving privacy terms or retained for future analysis without clear model training consent.
You may have signed an NDA.
But did your software?
We believe this model is broken.
Privacy shouldn’t be a setting. It should be architecture—enforced by on-device AI and the absence of server-side data pathways.
That is why we built Geode.
The cloud is just someone else’s computer
For a decade, we were told that “smart” requires “cloud.” We traded ownership for convenience and started renting the tools meant to serve us.
But hardware changed.
The Apple Silicon chip in your Mac now delivers performance that once required entire server clusters. Its Neural Engine can handle trillions of operations per second—locally, efficiently, and without an internet connection.
So why send your most private conversations to a remote server at all, when a cloud-free approach is now physically possible?
Radical Localism, by Design
Geode is built on a simple premise: your data never leaves your device.
Record a meeting—Zoom, Teams, in-person, anything—and the audio stays where it was created. Transcription, speaker separation, and summaries are all computed through on-device processing, not remote infrastructure.
There is no need to import to local after the fact, because your data was never remote to begin with.
This isn’t just security. It’s data sovereignty—achieved by keeping storage and computation under your physical control.
- Zero Uploading: No waiting for files to leave your machine.
- Zero Leakage Paths: We don’t operate servers that could be breached or subpoenaed.
- GDPR by Design: No transfers, no processors, no downstream compliance chain.
- Minimal Trust Required: You don’t need to trust our servers—because none are involved in your data flow.
By default, Geode remains silent. Nothing is recorded, processed, or transmitted unless you explicitly start it.
The right to control your tools
Cloud software taught us that memory must be rented. Miss a payment, lose access. Exceed a quota, lose capability.
Geode rejects that dependency model.
We offer subscriptions for flexibility and ongoing development, but the core principle remains the same: your work stays usable, private, and under your control—regardless of how much you use it.
Your meeting insights aren’t content feeds. They are assets—generated and stored locally, not harvested for external model training or hidden analytics.
Like a real geode: solid on the outside, crystalline on the inside.
Flexibility, without surrender
We are privacy maximalists, not isolationists.
Whether to use external AI models is entirely your decision.
If you explicitly choose to use external models for non-sensitive work, Geode will support optional external processing using your own credentials (BYOK), launching in late January 2026. This choice is explicit, reversible, and isolated from your private data, with no implied model training consent.
There is no silent fallback.
There is no automatic routing.
There is no implied consent.
The default state of Geode is local—and intentionally cloud-free.
Reclaim your territory
In an age of tracking and extraction, privacy is no longer just a preference—it is a professional obligation.
Geode is built for lawyers protecting privilege.
For executives defending strategy.
For journalists safeguarding sources.
For anyone who believes their conversations deserve to remain theirs.
It’s your voice. It’s your knowledge.
Keep it where it belongs.
