Use cases
Consultants: client site, no Wi-Fi, notes due tonight
Consulting produces more writing per hour than almost any other profession, in the least convenient conditions. Offline, on-device dictation is unusually well suited to it.
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Three constraints at once
Consulting is an unusual combination: high writing volume, confidential material, and terrible connectivity. Most tools solve one of those.
- Volume. Six stakeholder interviews produce six sets of notes, a synthesis, a client update and a section of the deck. All in a day.
- Confidentiality. Engagement NDAs are typically broad. A cloud dictation vendor is a third party the client did not contemplate.
- Connectivity. Client guest Wi-Fi, hotel Wi-Fi, trains, airports. Cloud dictation stops working in exactly the places consultants work.
The interview-to-notes loop
- Take rough notes during the interview By hand or keyboard. Do not dictate while someone is talking.
- Dictate the real version in the next five minutes In the corridor, in the stairwell, in the car. What they said, what they meant, what surprised you, what contradicts the last interview.
- Include the contradiction explicitly The most valuable output of a stakeholder round is where two people disagree, and it is the thing that disappears when notes are written from memory at nine o'clock.
- Dictate the synthesis at the end of the day Loosely, as a monologue. It becomes the structure of the deck.
- Build the deck from the notes, not from memory Which is only possible if the notes contain anything.
Offline is a practical requirement
This is where the on-device architecture stops being a privacy argument and becomes a functional one. Client guest networks require a captive portal and drop every twenty minutes. Hotel Wi-Fi wants a room number and a credit card. Trains have tunnels.
Cloud dictation does not degrade in those conditions — it stops, usually mid-sentence. On-device recognition does not notice. Install it and dictate one sentence at home before a trip and that is the entire preparation. See setting up offline dictation.
The NDA question
Most engagement agreements restrict disclosure of client information to third parties without consent. A cloud dictation service processing your interview notes is, on a plain reading, such a disclosure. Nobody intends it; it happens because a consultant installed a useful app on a Tuesday.
On-device recognition removes the question rather than answering it. That is a shorter conversation with a client's legal team than any assurance about a vendor's encryption. See dictation for confidential work.
Setting it up for an engagement
Before the first client day
- Model downloaded and one dictation tested at home — the only step needing a connection.
- Client name, the stakeholders' names and the client's product names added to vocabulary.
- An interview-note snippet: who, role, what they said, what they meant, contradictions, follow-ups.
- History retention set deliberately — this is client material on a laptop that travels.
- Disk encryption on: FileVault on a Mac, BitLocker on a Windows PC.
- A quiet place to dictate identified. A stairwell is better than an open office.
Where it does not help
- The deck. Slides are structure. Dictate the argument; build the slides by hand.
- The model. Obviously.
- Open client offices. You are speaking their confidential information aloud in their building. Find a stairwell.
- During the interview. Rough notes by hand; dictate after.
Questions
Can it write up client calls as well?
With VV Pro, yes. Vaitly Meetings (beta) records a call in the background the moment it starts on Zoom, Teams, Google Meet or Slack, with no meeting bot joining and no client-side admin permission needed, then gives you minutes, decisions and action items. Everything is transcribed on your computer and the audio is never uploaded; minutes and actions are written by sending the transcript's text to Vaitly's server, which uses OpenAI. You are responsible for telling the people on the call that you are transcribing it. Check your engagement terms before using the summaries on client work.
Does it work on client guest Wi-Fi?
It does not need to. Recognition runs on your Mac or PC, so captive portals and dropped connections are irrelevant once the one-off model download is done.
Is dictating client material a disclosure under my NDA?
With a cloud dictation service, arguably yes — the audio is transmitted to a third party. With on-device recognition there is no transfer, so the question does not arise. We are not your lawyers, but that is the distinction they will care about.
Can it transcribe a recorded interview?
Dictation does not, but VV Pro can: drop the recording into a watched folder or import it into Vaitly Meetings (beta) and it is transcribed on your computer. Recording an interview raises consent questions that dictation does not, so make sure the interviewee agreed.
How long does a good interview note take to dictate?
Sixty to ninety seconds for a substantial one. The constraint is finding five minutes between sessions, not the speaking.