Archevi vs. ChatGPT Projects: Which Is Better for Family Documents?
Two very different tools for managing family documents
OpenAI's ChatGPT Projects feature lets you group files into folders, attach custom instructions, and chat with an AI about the contents. It is a genuinely useful feature for general productivity.
But when the files in question are your family's wills, insurance policies, tax returns, and medical records, general productivity is not enough.
Here is an honest comparison of ChatGPT Projects and Archevi for family document management -- what each does well, where they differ, and which approach makes more sense for your family.
What ChatGPT Projects does well
Credit where it is due. ChatGPT Projects solves a real problem:
- Upload documents and reference them across conversations
- Set custom instructions that persist for the project
- Keep related chats grouped together
- Use GPT-4o to reason across your uploaded files
For general knowledge work -- research notes, meeting transcripts, project planning -- this is a solid workflow improvement.
Where the approaches diverge
Family documents are not research notes. They contain Social Insurance Numbers, beneficiary designations, medical diagnoses, and financial details.
Privacy and data training
ChatGPT: By default, OpenAI may use your conversations and uploaded files to train future models. You can opt out in settings, but the default is opt-in.
Archevi: We never train on your data. This is not a setting you need to find and toggle -- it is a permanent architectural decision. Boundary anonymization strips out personally identifiable information before any AI model sees your documents.
Data residency
- ChatGPT: All data is processed on US servers, subject to US jurisdiction including the CLOUD Act.
- Archevi: All data stored in Canada (DigitalOcean Toronto). PIPEDA governs your data. Canadian courts must approve any government access request.
Document-specific intelligence
- ChatGPT: Upload a PDF and ask questions. No OCR for scanned documents, no entity extraction, no auto-categorization.
- Archevi: Purpose-built pipeline: OCR, entity extraction (people, dates, policy numbers), knowledge graph across your entire vault. Cited answers pointing to exact pages.
Family sharing
- ChatGPT: Projects tied to a single account. No way to share with family members with controlled access.
- Archevi: Built for families. Both partners access a shared vault with granular permissions.
The knowledge graph difference
ChatGPT Projects gives you a folder of files you can chat about. Archevi gives you a connected knowledge base.
When you upload a dozen documents, Archevi reads them, extracts entities, identifies relationships between documents, and builds a structured graph. Ask questions that span multiple documents: "What insurance policies do we have?" or "Show me everything related to our mortgage." Answers are structured data with citations.
When to use each tool
One more thing: advertising
In early 2026, OpenAI began introducing ads to ChatGPT's free tier. When a product is free or low-cost, advertising is often how the business model sustains itself.
Archevi will never show ads. Your documents will never be used to target advertising. This is a permanent commitment. Full stop.
March 2026 Update: ChatGPT Projects Gets Bigger
ChatGPT Projects now connects to Slack and Google Drive as live sources, with persistent memory across all files. Storage has increased to 10GB per user with 80 uploads every 3 hours. These are meaningful improvements for general-purpose document work.
But the fundamental trade-off remains unchanged: ChatGPT Projects is a general-purpose AI tool that happens to handle documents. It stores your data on US servers, has no boundary anonymization, and its privacy model relies on you opting out of training -- a setting that resets with each new conversation context.
For work documents and general research, ChatGPT Projects is excellent. For your family's insurance policies, wills, medical records, and tax returns, the privacy gap has not closed.
Try it yourself
Sign up free. Your documents stay in Canada, they are never used for training, and you can share access with your family from day one.
