Deal notes stay in the deal room.
Diligence notes, IC memos, and audit workpapers are material non-public information before they are documents. Walkie's On-Device Mode transcribes them on your own machine, with no network request and nothing retained anywhere.
You are handling material non-public information, deal-room material under NDA, and findings that move a price if they move early, under your NDA, your firm's information barriers, and insider-trading rules that do not care whether the leak was careless or deliberate. Here's exactly where it goes, tier by tier — starting with the option that sends nothing at all.
Why on-device, and not just a good policy
Information barriers assume you can say where a document has been. A cloud transcription vendor is another place a deal name has been, and another party to name if anyone asks how a rumour started. On-Device Mode keeps the answer short: it never left the machine.
What actually leaves your machine
Ranked from strongest to weakest — because these three guarantees don't mean the same thing.
The speech model runs on your own machine and makes no network request at all. There is no server to trust, no policy to read, and no log to audit — the audio has nowhere to go. This is unlimited and free forever, on every plan and with no account.
Audio is transcribed in the cloud under Zero Data Retention: the request is processed and the content is discarded when the response is returned. Walkie does not retain it. Providers are contractually bound not to train on it. Cloud Mode also sends the name of the app you are dictating into, and can send the text around the cursor so polish can format the sentence — you can switch that off. If even that is unacceptable, use On-Device Mode.
A meeting archive you can search later is, definitionally, stored. Recordings and transcripts live in your account until you delete them, and deletion is permanent. Walkie can capture and summarise a meeting entirely on-device on a Mac with Apple Intelligence — but recorded hours are metered the same either way, so on-device capture is a privacy decision, never a cheaper one.
What you would dictate
Dictate findings as you work through the data room instead of writing them up from memory that evening.
Speak the thesis, then edit. The argument arrives more intact than it does through a keyboard.
Document testing and conclusions by voice while the workpaper is open in front of you.
Capture the read on a management team immediately after the call, before it smooths over.
Narrate assumptions and bridges so the next reader understands why, not just what.
Dictate updates and market commentary that still have to pass compliance review.
What Walkie does not do
Procurement will ask. Here first.
- Walkie is HIPAA-ready, not HIPAA-certified, and does not sign Business Associate Agreements. If your work requires a BAA, On-Device Mode removes the question instead of answering it — there is no third party to cover.
- There is no SSO, SCIM provisioning, or admin console. If your security team works from a procurement checklist, Walkie will not fill in every row.
- Recording other people is a legal question that varies by jurisdiction and often turns on consent. Walkie captures your computer's audio without joining the participant list, which makes telling people you are recording your job, not the app's.
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.