A private AI journal: can the company read your entries?
By The Architect team · Last updated
We make Architect. Everything on this page matches our privacy policy and the app itself, as of October 17, 2026.
No. Architect encrypts your entries on your device before they are stored, with a key made on your device that stays with you. Our servers hold only encrypted text, there is no admin view of your journal, and the company can't read it.
An AI still has to read your words to answer them. When you ask for a reply, the text goes to our AI model provider for that moment only. It is not stored there, and it is never used to train an AI model.
What happens to an entry
- On your device, the entry is encrypted (AES-256) before it is sent. The key is generated on your device, and we never receive it in readable form.
- On our servers, it is stored as encrypted text we cannot decrypt. There is no admin screen that shows a journal.
- Your mentor's replies are encrypted the same way, and so is the mentor's memory of you: the dated notes it keeps from your entries.
- On a new device, you open your journal with your twelve recovery words, or a private password you chose instead.
When your words leave your device readable
An AI journal can't answer what it can't read, so here is every moment your words are processed outside your device. Each one is transient: the text is used for that moment and not kept.
- To write a reply. The entry goes to our AI model provider. Under our data processing agreement, it is not stored and not used for training.
- To build the mentor's memory. The same provider reads the entry to make its dated notes, which are then encrypted like your journal.
- While you type, with memory on. What you are writing may be sent so the mentor can find related past entries. It is never stored.
- Voice. A voice note is transcribed by a speech-recognition provider. When you tap Listen, or talk in the Sitting, the reply's text, which can quote you, goes to a voice provider to make the audio.
- Photos. Photos are handled differently from writing: they are kept in private storage, opened only through short-lived links, and shown to the AI only while it writes your reply. They are not encrypted on your device the way your writing is.
We keep the names of these providers off our website. A list of the service providers we use is available on request: hello@architectapp.ai.
What the company can and can't see
We can't see your entries, your mentor's replies, or the notes it keeps about you.
We can see what it takes to run an account: your email and how you sign in, your plan and billing dates (card numbers are never stored by us), counts and times of how you use the app, and short labels the mentor gives each entry and reply, such as a broad topic like work. Those labels never contain your words. Product analytics are anonymous, and ad measurement never includes your journal.
Nothing you write trains an AI model, and your data is never sold or used to target ads.
What stays in your hands
- The key. It stays with you. The cost of that: if you lose your recovery words or private password and your session ends, your encrypted history can't be recovered, by us or anyone. That is by design.
- A copy. Settings, Your Data, Take a copy: your whole journal, decrypted on your device and saved to a file only you hold. Free on every plan.
- Deletion. Deleting your account permanently deletes every entry and all your data. There is no recovery period.
Privacy is on every plan. Writing is free, and every entry saves. The free plan includes 11 full mentor replies, then one reply every 7 days. No card is needed. The paid plan is $33 a month, $299 a year, or $9.99 a week.