Underdog is a new on-device AI assistant that promises to keep everything, including your data, off the cloud.
Sigil Wen, an AI developer with backing from a long list of prominent Silicon Valley investors, has launched Underdog, an AI assistant built to run directly on your device rather than shipping requests to a company's servers. The pitch: it's free to use, handles everyday tasks like a typical assistant, and does not require sending personal data to the cloud to work. Underdog enters a space already occupied by Instinct and Muse, two assistants that have made similar privacy promises. Wen is positioning Underdog as the most private option of the three.
On-device processing is the only way to make a 'private' claim actually mean something, since nothing leaves the hardware for a remote server to log, train on, or leak. If Underdog delivers on both fully local processing and real capability without a subscription, it puts pressure on Instinct and Muse to justify why their versions of privacy fall short by comparison.
Plenty of AI tools have promised to do everything on-device before learning that 'capable' and 'local' don't always fit on the same chip. We'll see if Underdog is the exception.