How it learns

Privy keeps a picture of your world.

Who your people are, what you own, what you call things. It builds most of that picture itself by reading what you already have, it asks before it uses any of it, and you can always just tell it something outright. This page explains how that works and why the answers are wrong without it.

Why any of this exists

Finding the file was never the hard part.

You say “my coffee K-1.” The document says HC Roasters LLC and does not contain the word coffee anywhere. Search the words you used and you get nothing back, while the answer sits in a folder you have never opened.

Every one of those misses is the same miss: the search knows the words, and does not know you. So Privy keeps a small, plain picture of your world alongside your records — and that picture is what turns your question into the right one.

What the picture holds

People, companies, places, and the words you use for them.

Nothing exotic. A short list of the things that come up in your own life, each one attached to what you actually call it.

You THE OWNER YOUR PEOPLE WHAT YOU OWN WHERE YOU ARE Nora DAUGHTER Sam Ellery ACCOUNTANT · SIGNS “S.” Theo Brand BUSINESS PARTNER Harbor Coffee ALSO FILES AS HC ROASTERS LLC Northgate Deli CLOSED · STILL FILES Fern Hill Partners THEO’S — NOT YOURS Bell Street The Ridgeway cabin

Sample content. Every name on this page is made up.

Why it matters

The same question, with and without it.

?What did my Harbor Coffee K-1 say last year

What Privy looks for

  • Harbor Coffee — the words you typed
  • HC Roasters LLC — the name on the paperwork
  • Schedule K-1, Form 1065 — what a K-1 is
  • The 2025 tax year — what “last year” means today

And what it stays out of

  • Fern Hill Partners — your partner’s, not yours
  • The other partners’ copies of the same return
  • Northgate Deli — a different company entirely

The right-hand column matters as much as the left. Knowing what is yours is what stops an answer from confidently handing you someone else’s number.

How it fills itself in

You are never handed an empty form.

Privy reads what is already in front of it — signature blocks, K-1 headers, the parties named on a lease, email footers — and proposes what it noticed. Each proposal comes with the evidence behind it and three ways to answer. Try it:

Harbor Coffee also files as HC Roasters LLC

Both names appear together on fourteen documents — two K-1s, the lease, and nine emails from your accountant.

Messages signed “S.” come from your accountant

Thirty-seven messages, all from the same address, all with the same sign-off.

The Northgate shop is closed, but the company still files

The last operating document is two years old. Tax filings continue after it.

Five minutes of yes and no, not an afternoon of typing. And a No is worth as much as a Yes — turning a guess down stops that pattern being suggested again, which is why the list gets shorter over time instead of longer.

How you add context yourself

Or you can simply say it.

One box, plain sentences, no fields to fill in and no menus to learn. Type what is true and it goes in at full trust — no inference, nothing to confirm.

Tell Privy something
Person

—

Told by you · used immediately

The same box handles the awkward things a form never has a field for: what you call something, and what is deliberately not yours.

Two ways it learns

And which one wins.

Noticed

Privy worked it out

Two names on the same fourteen documents. A signature block. A company sitting next to one you already own on a tax form. Good evidence — but still a guess, so it waits for you.

Told

You said so

A sentence you typed. Nothing inferred, nothing interpreted, no document read between the lines. It is used from that moment on.

When the two disagree, what you told it wins. A guess never overwrites a fact you stated, and two companies with similar names stay two companies until you say otherwise.

How it gets smarter

It sharpens as you use it, without ever going behind your back.

  1. It reads what is already thereSignature blocks, tax form headers, the parties on a lease, the footer of an email. Direct evidence, no guessing required.
  2. It notices what travels togetherTwo names on fourteen of the same documents is a strong hint they are one thing. One shared document is not — and in that case it does not ask.
  3. It proposes, you confirmEvery guess arrives with its evidence attached. Each Yes becomes permanent; each No closes that line of guessing for good.
  4. It notices which answers you keepWhen you consistently open one company’s documents after asking a certain way, that connection strengthens on its own — as a suggestion, never as a silent rewrite of your question.
  5. The questions get shorterOnce it knows the shape of your world you stop over-explaining. “My coffee K-1” is enough, because the picture behind it does the rest.
The guardrails

What this will not do.

Never a silent mergeTwo companies with similar names stay two companies until you say they are one. Privy will ask; it will not decide.
It shows its workEvery proposal names the documents it came from. You are approving evidence, not a black box.
Always reversibleAnything here can be edited or removed later, and the whole feature can be switched off without touching search.
It stays on your machineThis picture of your world is held locally and kept out of anything ever sent to a cloud model. More on that on the security page.

It learns your world. Your world stays put.

Privy is in development. If you would like to hear when it is ready, or you have a question this page did not answer, write to us.

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