Z.ai

Z.ai is the Chinese artificial intelligence company formerly called Zhipu AI, which develops the GLM models. It offers a chat, access for other programs to use its models and downloadable versions of many of them. As for whether it's trustworthy: technically its models compete with the big ones, but the trustworthiness that matters here is what happens to your data, and that's something you have to weigh up yourself.

The name change is confusing: if you read Zhipu, ChatGLM, GLM or Z.ai, you're looking at the same house. What's worth distinguishing is the service from the model. If you use its chat or its API, your texts travel to its servers and are governed by its terms and by the laws of its country, as with any provider. If you download a GLM model and run it on your machine, nothing leaves your home. For a small business, the practical rule is simple: no client data or sensitive information on a service whose terms you haven't read.

I use Z.ai's GLM alongside other AIs, with Claude as my main one, and I've had to ask myself that question about data too. What I use it for, how it compares with Claude and OpenAI on my own tasks and, above all, what data I give it and what I don't, I explain in "Kimi, GLM and MiniMax: the Chinese alternatives I use". If you're going to try it, start with texts you wouldn't mind seeing published.