vs ChatGPT

When you can’t paste it into ChatGPT.

ChatGPT is excellent. It’s also a third party.

Muet does the same kind of work on your Mac, without the third party.

The short version

ChatGPT processes your prompts and documents on OpenAI’s servers. Muet processes them on your Mac. For most work that’s a stylistic preference; for confidential work it’s the difference between something you can do and something you can’t.

What changed in May 2025

A US federal court in NYT v. OpenAI ordered OpenAI to preserve conversations users had deleted, including those covered by ChatGPT Plus, Team, Free, and most API tiers. Enterprise was excluded; almost everyone else wasn’t. OpenAI’s CEO has since publicly called for an “AI privilege,” which means, by definition, none exists today.

For a lawyer, accountant, or clinician, that one paragraph reframes the entire question. The vendor doesn’t have to want to keep your data, a court can compel it.

How the two compare on the things that matter

  • Where the document goes. ChatGPT: to OpenAI’s infrastructure. Muet: nowhere. It stays on your Mac.
  • Where the prompt goes. ChatGPT: logged on OpenAI’s servers. Muet: never leaves the device.
  • Retention. ChatGPT: 30 days by default, longer under legal hold or training opt-in. Muet: none because we have no servers that touch your work.
  • Discoverable in litigation. ChatGPT: yes. OpenAI can be subpoenaed and was, in May 2025. Muet: there is nothing to discover.
  • Sub-processors. ChatGPT: multiple, named in OpenAI’s DPA. Muet: none.
  • DPA required. ChatGPT: yes, if you’re processing personal data under GDPR. Muet: no, because we’re not a processor.
  • Works offline. ChatGPT: no. Muet: yes, after activation and model download.
  • Price. ChatGPT Plus: $20/month. Muet: $390/year per device, one annual invoice.

Most professionals use both

ChatGPT is fast, broad, and cheap. For the eighty percent of work that’s fine to send away (brainstorming, writing public-facing content, asking general questions, drafting things that aren’t about anyone’s real situation) it’s the right tool. We use it ourselves.

Muet exists for the twenty percent that has to stay where it is. A privileged communication, a patient record, a target-company data room, an unblinded trial, an internal investigation, a pre-patent disclosure, an unredacted exhibit, a financial statement with real names. The work where “the vendor doesn’t train on it” isn’t enough, because the data still leaves your machine, and a court can still reach it.

The realistic setup is both. Cloud AI for the public eighty; Muet for the confidential twenty. They don’t conflict.

What Muet actually does

  • Reads PDFs, Word documents, Excel and CSV, plain text, scanned images.
  • Answers questions and summarises within a document.
  • Writes tracked-change redlines back into Word.
  • Redacts PII in one pass with a returned redline.
  • Translates between languages without sending the document anywhere.
  • Picks the strongest model your Mac can run, and updates it as better local models ship.
  • And many more. We’re shipping new workflows continually.

Try it

Pricing

$390per Mac, per year

30-day money-back guarantee. Apple Silicon (M1 or newer), macOS 14 or newer. One licence per device, easy to expense.

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