Amii founder's Kind Local Pro keeps AI data on your computer

A former Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute founder released a version of his AI software that runs entirely on the user's machine, with no data sent to the cloud.

Jonathan Schaeffer, who helped found Amii and now runs Vancouver Island-based Synsira Software, said the product called Kind Local Pro was born from his frustration with how large AI companies handle user data.

"With the advent of LLMs – in particular, ChatGPT … in 2022 – I realized how important Kind was for helping respect the privacy of people's data," Schaeffer told BetaKit. "To be candid, I'm unhappy with the way that AI is going these days, and I wanted to do something about it."

Kind Local Pro installs proprietary tools on top of open-source AI models. Users drag and drop files – documents, video, images, email inboxes, audio – into the program. The AI ingests those materials and bases its responses solely on them. Nothing moves to cloud storage or any off-device server.

"All AI processing happens on your computer; your data never leaves your computer," Schaeffer said. "Once you install Kind, there is only one interaction between your installation and Synsira – periodic account verification to ensure you have a valid license."

The approach mirrors Google's Notebook LM in concept but differs on data sovereignty. Synsira is marketing Kind Local Pro toward industries where confidentiality is a legal or competitive requirement: legal work, intellectual property development, academia.

Running AI locally reduces energy consumption by sidestepping data centres. "The environmental movement wants people to think globally, but act locally," Schaeffer said. "We can have a global impact by reducing the demand for massive, expensive, environmentally unfriendly data centres."

Local processing also means Synsira cannot monitor how the software is used. That puts the company in a position at odds with recent pressure on OpenAI and others to flag interactions involving self-harm or potential violence. After the Tumbler Ridge, B.C. mass shooting, the Canadian government pressed OpenAI for stronger guardrails.

Schaeffer said Kind products do not offer free-form chat. "We have guardrails in place to prevent users from manipulating KLP into an inappropriate answer," he said. "Kind products do not offer 'chatting' – we view this as a safety risk. We do not anthropomorphize interactions."

All queries return fact-based answers drawn only from the user's own data. When the program cannot answer, it says so. Schaeffer compared the interface to the computer in Star Trek: "The computer has no personality. You ask a question and the computer does the analysis to come back with a fact-based answer."

Schaeffer has worked on Kind since 2017. Kind Local Pro is the on-device variant of his flagship product Kind Pro, which sends portions of data to cloud infrastructure.