Why I built Remy

I loved ChatGPT from the first week. I used it constantly. But when it came to the personal stuff - my kid’s school, a health question, plans with my wife - I never quite felt comfortable sharing personal information.

That feeling never went away, and eventually I understood why. AI model companies make their models better by using as much data as possible. So a company that is in the business of building AI models also having all my personal data did not make me feel safe - whether I checked the “don’t use my data to train AI” box or not. To me, there is a conflict of interest between my needs and their business objective.

So I went looking for an alternative.

There are some, but they are built for very technical people: install this, configure that, run your own server. I could never get my wife or my teenager to use a tool like that. It was clear to me that what I wanted did not exist yet.

That is when I started working on Remy.

The things I cared about were simple:

I want my data used for one purpose and one purpose alone: for me.

I want it to be so simple that my whole family can use it - my wife, my teenager, and even my almost 80 year old mom.

I want it to reach out to me when something needs my attention, like a real assistant would. Not the other way around.

I want it to be an extension of my brain, so I don’t have to remember everything about everything all the time.

And I want it to be able to do things in the real world - but only with my approval, never by itself.

This thinking shaped how Remy feels. ChatGPT, Gemini, and others have trained us to start a new chat for every new topic. But that is not how you work with a real assistant. With Remy, it is just one chat: you talk to it like you would talk to a person. You can still start a new chat for a special project, or a place to keep your recipes. But you never have to think about where a thought goes. You just tell Remy.

What makes Remy different is in our approach to how we make money and how your data is used:

We only make money one way: people paying for Remy. No ads. No selling data to third parties. If we break your trust, we lose your business.

We are not in the business of building AI models. When Remy uses an AI model to think, that request is processed and never kept. Every AI provider Remy uses is held to a zero data retention standard.

Nothing real happens without your approval. Remy cannot send an email, make a call, or book anything on its own. You press and hold to approve, or it does not happen.

You can delete everything, any time. If you decide to delete Remy, delete it all right in the app. We plan to add a way to download your data too. We want you to stay because Remy is great, not because your data is stuck with us.

This is the future I want for personal AI - an extension of us, for us, and us alone. We use Remy every day. Even my wife loves it. I hope you give it a try and tell us how to make it better for you.