Lead With AI Former Apple AI Engineer Brings Privacy-First Automation to Document Management
Jan 13, 2026
In this engaging conversation, John Fitzpatrick, CTO of Nitro Software and a former AI engineer at Apple, shares insights from his extensive experience in automation. He discusses how Nitro utilizes Smart Redact to efficiently identify and remove sensitive data while maintaining user privacy. John highlights the transformative power of AI in document management, especially in industries like pharma and legal, where it streamlines workflows. He emphasizes the importance of ethical AI practices, particularly the decision not to train models on customer data, ensuring a focus on privacy.
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Apply AI To Repetitive Document Work
- Nitro focuses AI on repetitive, time-consuming document tasks to return time to people.
- The company built a framework to identify where AI truly adds customer value instead of adding AI for hype.
Document Assistant That Answers Contracts
- Nitro launched a document assistant using private LLMs to answer questions about any document, including other languages.
- John described using it to parse heavy legal contracts and get plain-English answers instantly.
Smart Redact Automates PII Removal
- Nitro built Smart Redact to automatically detect names, addresses, SSNs, and other PII across documents.
- The feature highlights PII so users can review and redact hundreds or thousands of pages in minutes.
