Steno for Government
Meeting notes that never leave your perimeter.
Briefings, policy discussions, and internal reviews carry information that can't be handed to a cloud vendor. Steno records, transcribes, and summarizes entirely on the device — no third-party processor, no data crossing a border, no records leaving the machine they were captured on.
Why cloud tools don't fit
- Cloud meeting tools route audio through servers outside your control — and often outside your jurisdiction.
- A bot joining the call is a participant you can't fully account for in a sensitive briefing.
- Retention and access to recordings sit under a vendor's terms, not your records policy.
Data sovereignty
Everything is processed and stored on the device. Nothing transits an external server, so residency and sovereignty obligations are supported by architecture, not a vendor promise.
Works air-gapped
After first-run setup, Steno needs no network. It runs on isolated and offline networks where cloud tools simply can't operate.
No bot in the room
Steno captures system and microphone audio directly — nothing joins the meeting as a participant.
Auditable by design
It's open source. Your security team can read exactly what touches the audio and confirm the no-network claim themselves.
On compliance
Steno runs entirely on your device. Your meeting recordings, transcripts, and summaries never reach our servers — there is no third-party processor handling your meeting data, which addresses a meaningful part of HIPAA, GDPR, and data-residency exposure. (Those frameworks also cover safeguards, agreements, and processes that remain your responsibility — no tool hands you compliance.) Steno itself isn't a certified cloud service, because there is no cloud service handling your meetings to certify — and that's the point: the vendor-breach risk that frameworks such as SOC 2 exist to assure against isn't in that path.
Questions
Because processing and storage happen on the device and nothing is uploaded, your data never leaves the machine — or the jurisdiction it's in. There is no cloud region to configure and no cross-border transfer to account for.
Yes. Once the models are downloaded during first-run setup, recording, transcription, and summarization all run offline. Steno makes no network requests with your meeting content.
Steno is open source (MIT). Your team can audit the code, build it from source, and confirm exactly what it does and doesn't send before deploying.
Also built for: Defense · Legal · Healthcare · Finance · Executive
Start keeping private notes.
Free. Open source. No account needed.
macOS 14.4+ (Apple Silicon) · Windows 10/11 (x64, alpha — unsigned) · ~4 GB for the default model