The surge in popularity of AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude raises significant privacy concerns. Unlike traditional services where data collection is routine, these powerful tools have access to intensely personal conversations. With companies like OpenAI testing advertising integration, the risk of user data being exploited for profit is real.
However, a new project led by Moxie Marlinspike—co-founder of the encrypted messaging app Signal—aims to change that. Confer is an AI chatbot built from the ground up with privacy as its core principle. Unlike competitors, Confer is designed to avoid data retention, ensuring that your conversations remain private. The service uses open-source methods, similar to Signal, to build trust and transparency.
Marlinspike explains the problem bluntly: “It’s a form of technology that actively invites confession. Chat interfaces like ChatGPT know more about people than any other technology before. When you combine that with advertising, it’s like someone paying your therapist to convince you to buy something.” This highlights the unique intimacy of AI chatbots and the potential for misuse.
How Confer Protects Your Privacy
Confer employs a multi-layered security system to ensure user data remains private. Key features include:
- End-to-End Encryption: Messages are encrypted using the WebAuthn passkey system, making interception difficult.
- Trusted Execution Environment (TEE): All AI processing happens within a secure TEE, preventing server-side access to your conversations. Remote attestation verifies the system’s integrity.
- Open-Weight Models: Confer utilizes open-source AI models, minimizing reliance on proprietary algorithms.
This setup is far more complex than typical AI infrastructure, but it delivers on its promise: you can have sensitive conversations without fear of your data being leaked or exploited.
Pricing and Availability
Confer offers a free tier limited to 20 messages per day and five active chats. For unlimited access, advanced models, and personalization, users can subscribe for $35 per month. This is notably more expensive than ChatGPT Plus, but privacy comes at a cost.
Confer represents a critical shift in the AI landscape. By prioritizing user privacy from the start, it sets a new standard for how personal AI assistants should be built. Whether this approach will become widespread remains to be seen, but the demand for data-secure alternatives is undeniable.
