Private AI: A Chatbot and Document Assistant That Never Leave Your Office
The same kind of assistant your staff are already using — on a machine in your own building, where the client file, the draft and the conversation stay yours.
Private AI means an AI assistant whose prompts, documents and answers are processed on hardware you own, not on a provider's servers. AgentHub installs a private AI chatbot and document search on a dedicated machine in your office, running open-weight models. No provider sees your files, nothing is used to train models, and you control access.
Book a Private AI Consultation
Quoted after one short call · Irish, PhD-led team · Your DPO is welcome on the call
Private AI is delivered through Local AI, our on-premise product: private chat, document spaces and custom assistants on one machine we install and support.
Why a Private AI Chatbot Beats a Public One for Confidential Work
A private AI chatbot does what the public one does — summarise, draft, explain, compare — but the text you paste in goes to a machine in your own office instead of a provider's servers. That single change removes the question that stops most Irish accountants, solicitors and clinics from using AI on real client work: where did that file just go?
Because the honest version of the status quo is this. It's Thursday, a year-end file is due, and someone in the accounts team pastes three pages of a client's management accounts into a free chatbot to get a summary written. Best of intentions. No record of what went where. A blanket ban doesn't stop it — it just moves it to a personal phone. Private AI gives the same person the same tool, on hardware you control, with a login you manage. We wrote up the underlying question in Is ChatGPT safe for confidential information? if you want the detail on what each public tier actually does with your inputs.
A Private AI Chatbot, Document Spaces and Assistants — On One Machine
All three run on a single machine in your building. Staff sign in with the Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace accounts they already have.
Private AI Chatbot
A ChatGPT-style assistant on your own hardware. Paste a contract clause, upload a PDF, work through a letter draft — the conversation is stored on the box, and only there.
Document Spaces
Organise client files, precedents or policies into spaces. Ask a question across hundreds of documents and get an answer with a citation back to the exact page.
AI Assistants
Custom automations for the recurring jobs — the monthly management letter, a standard engagement memo, a checklist someone runs by hand — built and supported by us.
Public Chatbot vs Private AI: What Happens to Your Files
The columns look similar on screen. They are not similar underneath.
| Question | Public AI chatbot | Private AI (Local AI) |
|---|---|---|
| Where does the text you paste go? | To the provider's servers, usually outside Ireland | To a machine in your own office; it never leaves your network |
| Who else can see it? | The provider, under its terms; on free tiers, possibly reviewers | Only the staff you've given access to |
| Is it used to train models? | Depends on the tier and the settings your staff chose | Never — the models arrive trained and stay that way |
| Is there a processor to contract with? | Yes, for every user, and staff often sign up without one | None for the AI step; we're a processor only for support access you grant |
| Can it search your own documents? | One upload at a time, into someone else's storage | Whole folders, indexed on the box, with citations |
| Who controls access? | Whoever created the account — often a personal login | You, through your existing Microsoft or Google groups |
| Works if the internet drops? | No | Yes — internet is only used for sign-in |
How to Use an LLM With Private Data Without It Learning Your Data
You don't train the model on your documents. Instead, the system indexes your files and, when someone asks a question, hands the model the relevant pages at that moment — the model reads them, answers, and cites where the answer came from. The model itself never changes. Delete a document and it's gone from every future answer.
The technical name is retrieval — the model is handed the evidence at question time rather than memorising it. For a business this matters for two reasons. First, your data can't leak out of the model, because it was never in it. Second, retention behaves the way your policy says it should: remove the file from the space and there is no copy hiding in a model's weights, on your machine or anyone else's. A local private LLM — the model plus this retrieval layer, on your own hardware — is what our Local AI installation is. If you want the model-level detail, our local LLM page covers which models run on premises and how we choose one.
Three Things "Private AI" Can Mean — Only One Keeps the Data In-House
Worth reading before you compare quotes, because the word "private" is doing very different work in each.
| What's on offer | Where your data actually goes | What you still have to do | Fit for confidential Irish client work |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business tier of a public chatbot | The provider's servers; "not used for training" is a contract term, not a physical fact | Sign the processor agreement, assess the transfer, stop staff using the free tier alongside it | Workable for some firms, with paperwork |
| A "private cloud" AI tenant | Still a third party's data centre, walled off from other customers | Same processor and transfer questions; plus a project to set it up | Better isolation, same fundamental questions |
| A local private LLM on your premises | A machine in your building; nothing crosses the network boundary for the AI step | Decide who has access and which folders are in scope — you remain the controller | The one where "where did the file go?" has a one-word answer: nowhere |
To be fair to the first two: they are legitimate choices, and for a firm with a data protection officer and the patience for the paperwork, a business tier can be signed off. Our view is simply that for a 5-50 person Irish business, the third option removes more questions than it adds. Our GDPR-compliant AI page walks through exactly which GDPR questions disappear and which ones stay yours.
Private AI in Your Office in Three Steps
Tell Us What It Would Read
A short call about the team and the folder — client files, precedents, personnel records. We size the machine from that. Bring your DPO or adviser; these are the questions we'd rather answer early.
We Install It
A configured machine arrives, goes on your network, and sign-in is connected to your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. We import the existing documents into spaces and train the people who'll use it.
It Stays Private, and Stays Current
Software updates, model upgrades, backups and support are ours, under a data processing agreement we sign for the support access you grant. You remain the data controller throughout.
What the Private AI Arrangement Covers
One arrangement: the machine, the installation and keeping it current. Quoted after a short call, once we know your team size.
| Part | What you get | What isn't part of it |
|---|---|---|
| Hardware | A dedicated machine, sized for your team, supplied and installed by us | No server-room project; a network port and a socket is what we need from you |
| Setup | Installation on your network, single sign-on, import of existing documents, training | No discovery workshops or strategy decks to buy first |
| Ongoing | Software updates, model upgrades, support from the people who installed it | No per-message or per-user usage fees for the AI itself |
| Data | Documents, chat history and models stay on the box; never used for training; backed up and restorable | We never hold a copy of your documents for our own purposes |
| Custom assistants | Scoped with you and covered by the support arrangement | Not bespoke machine-learning research |
What Clients Say About Working With Us
Our inbox was drowning us. AgentHub's email manager now categorises everything and drafts responses that sound exactly like us. Response times went from 48 hours to under 4.
Since installing AgentHub's AI receptionist, we haven't missed a single patient call. It handles appointment queries after hours and our front desk staff can focus on in-clinic care.
Private AI From a Team Whose Co-Founder Is a Security Architect
Built in Ireland
An Irish company installing machines in Irish offices. The people who set it up are the people who answer the phone — see who we are.
PhD-Led Team
Founded by a Computer Science PhD with 27+ years in software, including 15 years at IBM Ireland.
Security First
Co-founded by a Security Architect. Access through your own identity provider, no inbound ports, and a data processing agreement signed before go-live.
Honest About Limits
Local models are somewhat slower than the biggest cloud services and trail them on hard, novel reasoning. We'll tell you when the cloud is the better answer.
Private AI: Your Questions Answered
What is private AI?
Private AI is an AI assistant whose prompts, documents and answers are processed on hardware you own rather than a provider's servers. With Local AI, a machine in your office runs open-weight models for chat, document search and assistants. No provider sees your files and nothing is used to train models.
Is a private AI chatbot really private?
When it runs on your premises, yes in the physical sense: the conversation is stored on a machine in your building and only staff you've given access to can see it. The only outside connection is to your own Microsoft or Google account for sign-in. Privacy is a fact of where the box sits, not a contract term.
Can I use an LLM with my private data without it being trained on it?
Yes. The model is never trained on your documents. The system indexes your files and hands the model the relevant pages at question time, with citations. Remove a document from a space and it disappears from future answers, because it was never inside the model to begin with.
How is private AI different from the business tier of a public chatbot?
A business tier keeps your data on the provider's servers and promises by contract not to train on it. Private AI on your premises keeps the data in your building, so there is no AI processor to appoint and no international transfer to assess. One is a promise; the other is a location.
Does private AI need an internet connection?
Not for the AI itself. The models run on the machine in your office, so chat and document search keep working if your line goes down. Internet is used for signing in, and for connecting to your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace account if you choose to enable that.
Which Irish businesses use private AI?
The ones whose files are somebody else's secrets: accountants with client year-end files, solicitors with matter documents, GP and dental practices with admin records, HR teams with personnel files. Most start with one team and one folder, then widen access once that team uses it daily.
Ready to Keep Your AI Private?
Tell us what you'd want it reading, and we'll tell you whether private AI on your premises is the right fit — and what it would take.
Prefer to talk? Email sghaith@agenthub.ie or call 087 788 2676.