---
title: "Blog — Notes on Private, On-Premise AI"
description: "Engineering notes and product updates from Royal Softworks on local-first AI, data sovereignty and software that runs entirely on your own hardware."
url: "https://royalsoftworks.com/blog/"
source: "https://royalsoftworks.com"
format: "markdown"
note: "Markdown rendering of the HTML page at `url`. Same content, same canonical URL."
---

Blog

# Notes from Royal Softworks

Engineering notes, product updates and perspective on local-first AI and building software that never leaves your own hardware.

[RSS](https://royalsoftworks.com/blog/rss.xml)

[Privatta ## Privatta 1.1: Automatic Updates, and Signed Windows Builds Privatta 1.1 updates itself, signs its Windows builds, and adds a second factor to every internet session — a code that never travels with the key. August 19, 2026 6 min](https://royalsoftworks.com/blog/privatta-1-1-automatic-updates/) [Privatta ## Privatta Beta 2: Better Tamper Protection on the Access Log, Plus Unattended Hosts What's new in Privatta's latest beta: better tamper protection on the access log, always-on host mode, simpler device binding and one-time P2P keys. July 23, 2026 2 min](https://royalsoftworks.com/blog/privatta-beta-2-whats-new/) [Privatta ## Where Do Your Files Actually Go When You 'Share' Them? Uploading a file to a sharing link is usually a legal act — an international data transfer with its own paperwork. Here is what actually happens, plainly. July 18, 2026 5 min](https://royalsoftworks.com/blog/where-do-your-files-actually-go/) [AssistantGeneral ## Where Does That Prompt Go? What Happens When You Paste Sensitive Data Into a Cloud AI Pasting a patient note into a chat window sends that text to a vendor's servers. What that means under HIPAA, and what changes with on-device inference. July 18, 2026 4 min](https://royalsoftworks.com/blog/what-happens-when-you-paste-sensitive-data-into-cloud-ai/) [Privatta ## Direct, Not Relayed: How WebRTC Actually Secures a Peer-to-Peer File Transfer WebRTC makes encryption mandatory at the protocol level. How the handshake actually works, and why a signaling server never sees a byte of your file. July 18, 2026 4 min](https://royalsoftworks.com/blog/webrtc-direct-not-relayed/) [AssistantGeneral ## RAG, Explained Honestly: What Retrieval-Augmented Generation Can and Can't Fix Retrieval-augmented generation is sold as the cure for hallucination. Research on real products shows it is an improvement, not a cure. Here is the gap. July 18, 2026 4 min](https://royalsoftworks.com/blog/rag-explained-honestly/) [AssistantGeneral ## On-Premise vs. Cloud AI for Finance Teams: The Actual Trade-offs Cloud AI pilots faster and costs less at low volume. On-premise wins on compliance and, past a real break-even, on cost. How to make the call honestly. July 18, 2026 4 min](https://royalsoftworks.com/blog/finance-ai-on-premise-vs-cloud/) [AssistantGeneral ## Attorney-Client Privilege and AI: What a 2026 Federal Ruling Actually Changed A federal court has ruled for the first time that chats with a consumer AI tool were not privileged. What United States v. Heppner held, and what follows. July 18, 2026 6 min](https://royalsoftworks.com/blog/attorney-client-privilege-and-ai/) [AssistantGeneral ## Why AI Pilots Keep Dying in Financial-Services Compliance Review A third of financial-services leaders now restrict generative AI. The reason is not caution — it is a specific set of regulations cloud AI cannot satisfy. July 18, 2026 5 min](https://royalsoftworks.com/blog/ai-adoption-financial-services/) [Company ## Welcome to the Royal Softworks blog Why we're writing here, and what to expect — notes on local-first AI, data sovereignty, and building software that never leaves your hardware. July 17, 2026 1 min](https://royalsoftworks.com/blog/hello-world/)