Where your diligence notes actually go
An information barrier is only as good as your ability to say where a document has been. Most dictation tools quietly add a location to that list.
Diligence notes are material non-public information before they are documents. So are IC memos, audit findings that have not been discussed with management, and the read you formed on a CEO during a call that has not been announced. The controls around this material — restricted lists, wall-crossing procedures, deal codenames — all assume a traceable, enumerable set of places the information lives.
Then somebody dictates their notes on the walk back from the data room, and the target's name is processed on a server in a region nobody on the deal team chose, by a vendor nobody on the deal team diligenced, under terms nobody on the deal team read.
The awkward part is not that this is reckless. It is that it is invisible. Cloud transcription is the default architecture for the category, and the tool gives no indication at the moment of use that a network request just carried a deal codename off the machine.
Why the codename does not save you
Deal codenames are a good control against casual overhearing. They are a weak control against a transcript, because a transcript carries context the codename was supposed to strip. “Project Meridian” means nothing on its own. “Project Meridian's EBITDA bridge doesn't survive the customer concentration in the Nordics” narrows the universe considerably, and it is exactly the sentence somebody dictates.
The same applies to audit work. “The revenue recognition issue at the client” is anonymous. The dictated version names the contract, the quarter, and the counterparty.
Two different strengths of answer
There are only two structurally different responses a dictation tool can give to “where did this audio go?”
A retention commitment. The audio went to a provider, which processed it and discarded it. Zero Data Retention is the strong form of this: content is not logged and not kept beyond the response. Walkie's Cloud Mode works this way, and nothing is ever used to train AI models on any tier, contractually. This is a good answer, and it is still an answer about somebody else's conduct.
No request at all. Walkie's On-Device Mode runs the speech model on your own hardware. No packet leaves the machine. There is no provider, no region, no retention window, and no third party to name if anyone ever asks how a rumour started. It is unlimited and free forever on every plan.
For MNPI the second answer is the one worth having, and it costs nothing.
The offline case is not hypothetical
On-Device Mode needs no internet connection, which turns out to matter operationally as often as it matters legally:
- Physical data rooms where the wifi is the counterparty's and devices are restricted.
- Flights, which remain the place where a disproportionate amount of IC memo writing happens.
- Client sites with guest networks you would rather not route a deal name through.
- Any moment where the alternative is losing the thought because the connection dropped.
Recording management calls
Recording is a separate feature with genuinely different properties, and it is worth being explicit about them.
Walkie can record and transcribe calls, including entirely on-device on a Mac with Apple Intelligence, which keeps the content local. But a meeting archive you can search later is, definitionally, stored: recordings and transcripts live in your account until you delete them. Deletion is permanent and covers the rows, the audio, and the cloud copy. Recorded hours are metered the same whether capture is on-device or in the cloud, so choosing on-device is a privacy decision, never a cheaper one.
Walkie records your computer's audio, so it captures everyone on a call without appearing in the participant list. Whether you may record a management call is a legal question that varies by jurisdiction and usually turns on consent — and on many deals, recording is separately prohibited by the process letter. Say at the top of the call that you are recording, or do not record.
A workable split
- On-Device Mode for anything naming a target, a counterparty, an unannounced figure, or a finding: diligence notes, IC memos, audit workpapers, management call read-outs.
- Cloud Mode for the writing where polish earns its keep: client-ready commentary, internal updates that have cleared compliance, the fourth draft of anything.
You switch per moment rather than per plan, and the custom dictionary — sector jargon, fund names, the tickers you type constantly — applies in both.
What Walkie does not offer
No SSO, no SCIM, no admin console. A firm with a formal vendor-review process will find rows Walkie cannot fill today. On-Device Mode needs no account at all, which is sometimes the shorter path through that process rather than the longer one.
Questions
In On-Device Mode no network request is made, so MNPI you dictate does not reach a third party. Cloud Mode sends audio to a transcription provider under Zero Data Retention, which is a contractual protection rather than a technical impossibility. For deal names and unannounced figures, use On-Device Mode.
Yes. On-Device Mode needs no internet connection at all — it is the mode built for airplane mode and for rooms where the wifi is not yours.
Walkie can record and transcribe calls, including entirely on-device on a Mac with Apple Intelligence. Recordings and transcripts are stored in your account until you delete them. Whether you may record is a legal question that usually turns on consent — tell people at the start of the call.
No. Nothing you dictate, read aloud, or record is used to train AI models — not on the free plan, not on any paid plan, and not by the providers Walkie sends requests to. That is contractual, not a preference toggle.