Executive and leadership coaches run the same folder-per-client loop under contractual confidentiality rather than HIPAA — the next-session brief and themes across sessions, never a coaching feature.
Why on-device matters for a therapy practice
A therapy session is one of the most sensitive recordings a person will ever make. Most AI transcription and note-taking products work by uploading that audio to a cloud server, running it through a hosted model, and storing the result on infrastructure you do not control. For a practitioner handling protected health information, that upload is the whole problem: it creates a copy of a confidential session on someone else’s hardware, governed by someone else’s retention policy, reachable by someone else’s subpoena.
Kajo removes the upload entirely. Transcription runs directly on your Mac, Windows, or Linux machine. Translation, summaries, and the chat assistant all run against the same on-device Gemma 4 model. There is no “process in the cloud” toggle to forget to switch off, because there is no cloud-processing path in the product at all. The audio, the transcript, and the AI-written note all stay in an encrypted library on the machine in your office.
That is a simpler compliance story to defend. When protected health information never leaves your device, there is no transcription vendor in the chain that would need a Business Associate Agreement for that step, no data-residency region to configure, and no breach-notification exposure tied to a processor you onboarded. Kajo is a tool rather than a compliance program — you still own your obligations — but it is built so the easiest path is also the private one.
Built for session confidentiality
Session audio stays on your device
Kajo transcribes on-device. No audio, transcript, or summary is uploaded. The recording of what a client shared in confidence stays on the hardware you already control — there is no third-party custodian.
Progress notes in minutes
Kajo drafts the note you write from the session — a structured summary of the transcript from the local model. You review every sentence — review before this leaves this machine — but the blank-page time after a long day of sessions largely goes away.
Lifetime convenience surfaces
Lifetime unlocks unlimited imports plus watch folders and batch export. Per-file transcript export is available on Free within the allowance. For product information your records need, contact privacy@kajovoice.com.
Privacy by architecture
Audio and transcripts never leave the device — there is no cloud-processing path. Point a supervisor or privacy-conscious client to /trust and /security, or request a privacy attestation via privacy@kajovoice.com after Lifetime purchase.
Kajo vs cloud AI note-takers for therapists
| Consideration | Kajo | Cloud AI note-taker |
|---|---|---|
| Session audio uploaded to a server | Never — on-device | Yes |
| Third-party copy of the session | None | Stored by the vendor |
| Works fully offline | ✅ | ❌ |
| Batch export | ✅ Lifetime | Vendor-held, if any |
| Privacy by architecture (no cloud path) | ✅ | ❌ |
| One-time payment (no subscription) | ✅ $49 once | ❌ |
Setting up Kajo for your practice
-
Download Kajo for Mac, Windows, or Linux at /download — free, no account required.
-
Unlock Lifetime ($49 one-time) for watch folders and batch export.
-
With explicit client consent, import the session recording (or a telehealth export) — Kajo transcribes on-device; audio never uploads.
-
Review the on-device draft note and export the progress note to your EHR or a secured local folder. Use per-file export from the Library, or batch export with Lifetime.
Consent, the therapeutic relationship, and session notes
Recording a session — even just for a transcript — changes the room, so it should always be an explicit, documented conversation with the client, not a default. Kajo is built to make that conversation easier to have honestly: you can tell a client, truthfully, that the recording never leaves the computer in your office, that no company is listening to or training on their words, and that you can delete the session and its transcript permanently at any time. For practitioners who work with trauma, immigration, or other high-stakes material, that on-device guarantee is not a nice-to-have — it is the difference between being able to use AI assistance at all and having to write every note by hand. Kajo keeps the clinician in the loop on every note and keeps the data on the device you already secure.