Moxie Marlinspike unveils privacy-focused alternative to ChatGPT

If privacy is a concern for you, the growing presence of AI personal assistants can feel unsettling. It's hard to use one without disclosing personal information, which the model's parent company retains. With OpenAI already testing advertising, it's easy to imagine that the same data collection practices powering Facebook and Google could creep into your chatbot interactions.

A new project introduced in December by Signal co-founder Moxie Marlinspike demonstrates what a privacy-focused AI service could be. Confer looks and feels like ChatGPT or Claude, but its backend is structured to prevent data collection, backed by the same open-source rigor that makes Signal trustworthy. Your conversations on Confer cannot be used to train the model or serve targeted ads, simply because the host never has access to them.

For Marlinspike, these safeguards are a direct response to the service's inherently personal nature.

Marlinspike says, "It's a technology that actively encourages confession. Chat interfaces like ChatGPT gather more personal data than any previous technology. When you add advertising into the mix, it's like having someone pay your therapist to persuade you to make a purchase."

Achieving that level of privacy requires multiple systems working together seamlessly.

First, Confer encrypts messages using the WebAuthn passkey system. (Unfortunately, this standard performs best on mobile devices or Macs running Sequoia, though it can be configured on Windows or Linux with a password manager.) On the server side, all inference processing takes place within a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE), with remote attestation systems verifying the system's integrity. Inside, an array of open-weight foundation models handles any incoming query.

The result is far more complex than a standard inference setup (which is already quite complex), but it fulfills Confer's core promise to users. As long as these protections remain active, you can hold sensitive conversations with the model without any data leakage.

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Add yourself to the Disrupt 2026 waitlist and be among the first to know when Early Bird tickets go on sale. Past Disrupts have featured Google Cloud, Netflix, Microsoft, Box, Phia, a16z, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Hugging Face, Elad Gil, and Vinod Khosla on stage — part of over 250 industry leaders powering 200+ sessions designed to accelerate your growth and sharpen your competitive edge. Plus, connect with hundreds of startups innovating across every sector.

Confer's free tier limits you to 20 messages per day and five active chats. For $35 a month, users get unlimited access along with more advanced models and personalization. That's significantly more than ChatGPT's Plus plan — but privacy has its price.