TalkAbout — AI that stays on your computer
Your words. Your data. Nobody else's business.
What is TalkAbout?
TalkAbout is a desktop application that listens to you speak, turns your words into text, and then uses artificial intelligence to do something useful with them.
Think of it like having a very smart assistant sitting inside your computer. You talk, it types. Then it helps you turn that raw transcript into a polished email, a clean summary, a list of action items, or a social media post.
The part that makes TalkAbout different from tools like ChatGPT or Google's AI features? Everything happens locally. On your machine. No internet connection required after setup, no cloud server receiving your words, no third party storing your conversations.
What it actually does
Once you hit record, TalkAbout captures your voice in real time. When you stop, you have a transcript sitting right in front of you.
From there you pick what you want to do with it:
- Ask AI — have a question answered based on what you said
- Quick Email — turn a rambling voice note into a clean, ready-to-send email
- Summary — get the key points without the filler
- Action Items — pull out the tasks and next steps automatically
- Social Post — reshape your content for LinkedIn or other platforms
- Custom Prompt — write your own instruction for anything else you need
One click, and the AI goes to work. The result lands right there on screen, ready to copy or keep.
Why "local first" matters
Most AI tools work by sending your text or audio to a remote server, processing it there, and sending the result back to you. That means your words travel across the internet, pass through someone else's infrastructure, and often get stored in ways you have no control over.
TalkAbout flips that model. The AI model runs directly on your computer using a technology called local LLM inference (LLM stands for Large Language Model, the same type of AI powering tools like ChatGPT). No data leaves your machine during that process.
The application itself is built on Tauri, a framework that lets developers build lightweight desktop apps using web technologies on the outside and a fast systems language called Rust on the inside. The result is a native desktop app that feels snappy and does not need a browser to run.
Speech recognition is handled at the point of capture and processed on-device, keeping the audio pipeline as private as the rest of the tool.
Who built it and why
TalkAbout was built by the team at AEC Benefits, a group benefits company that has spent over 20 years working closely with Ontario businesses in the construction industry.
The idea came from a real problem. A lot of the most valuable thinking in any business happens out loud — in conversations, during site visits, or in the middle of the day when nobody has time to sit down and write. Voice is fast. Typing is slow. AI can bridge that gap, but not if it means sending sensitive client conversations off to a cloud server you do not control.
The goal was to build something that non-technical people could actually install and use, with privacy baked in by design rather than bolted on as an afterthought.
Technical summary (for the curious)
| Layer | Technology | |---|---| | Desktop application | Tauri (Rust backend) | | User interface | React with TypeScript | | AI model inference | Local LLM via Ollama (runs on your hardware) | | Speech to text | On-device transcription | | Data storage | Local only, no external database | | Internet required | First-time setup only |
The bottom line
TalkAbout is for anyone who thinks faster than they type, works with information that should stay private, and wants AI to actually help without becoming a liability.
It runs on your computer. It listens to you. It does the work. And when it is done, your words have never left the room.
TalkAbout is currently in active development. Interested in early access? Reach out via the contact page.