Zanus AI — 2026 TMCnet Enterprise AI Product of the Year
At the Generative AI Expo during ITEXPO #TECHSUPERSHOW 2026 in Fort Lauderdale, TMCnet host Rich Tehrani sat down with Luca Zanetti (CTO) and Giorgio Zanetti (CMO) of Zanus AI to discuss a growing trend in enterprise technology: private, on-premises AI systems designed for security, cost control, and full data ownership.
As businesses adopt AI, concerns around privacy, compliance, and rising token costs are becoming impossible to ignore. This interview covers the real-world case for moving AI off the cloud and onto your own infrastructure.
Watch the Full Interview (12 minutes)
Key Takeaways
- Cloud AI sends your data to unknown servers — every prompt, document, and client record is processed externally, training future models with your proprietary information
- Token costs escalate quickly — a single image is 30,000 tokens; a team of 3 doing real work can cost thousands per day
- Zanus AI runs 5 LLMs locally — the system intelligently selects the right model for each task (video analysis, email processing, document review)
- One-time cost, no subscriptions — can be financed at approximately $3,500/month for 3 years, then it's yours forever
- Custom AI apps — like iPhone apps, Zanus can build custom agent sequences for specific business workflows
- No bandwidth throttling — unlike cloud AI that degrades during peak usage, your private server delivers consistent performance 24/7
Topics Covered in This Interview
- Why cloud-based AI raises serious data privacy concerns
- How Zanus AI delivers a fully private, on-premises AI solution
- Eliminating token costs with unlimited local processing
- Use cases across law firms, healthcare, finance, and engineering
- Running multiple LLMs locally for smarter decision-making
- Custom AI apps tailored to specific business workflows
- Ensuring compliance (GDPR, HIPAA) with data staying on-premises
Full Interview Transcript
The following is a complete transcript of the interview, edited for clarity and readability.
Rich Tehrani: Hey, it's Rich Tehrani. Thanks for watching. We are at the Generative AI Expo — it's part of the IT Expo Tech Super Show. It's February 2026, and part of our wonderful experience here is speaking with the great exhibitors such as Zanus AI. Zanus AI representatives are with me in our production booth. Can you please introduce yourself, starting with you, Luca?
Luca Zanetti: Yeah, well, first of all it's a pleasure — it's an honor to be here with you. It's a great show. This is Luca Zanetti from Zanus AI. I'm the CTO, the technical director of Zanus AI, in charge of the engineering of the generative AI product. And here is Giorgio.
Giorgio Zanetti: I am Giorgio Zanetti. I'm our chief marketing officer and I'm in charge of all our marketing and technical information.
25 Years of Hardware Experience Behind the AI
Rich Tehrani: Exciting. So you have an AI at the end of your name. So I kind of guessed you guys are in the AI space.
Giorgio Zanetti: Well, we gathered all the information from the customers around. So we come from 25 years of hardware. We are in the broadcast field since 25 years and now we have this sister company called Zanus AI. So of course we are not starting today — we know hardware very well. We have this experience and we listen to our customers, and to many customers looking for AI.
The Core Problem: Cloud AI and Data Privacy
Giorgio Zanetti: We are in the world of AI now. Everybody wants to do AI but everybody is concerned about the security. The main problem is — AI is the best technology, the greatest technology, everybody will have AI because it makes everything easier for employees, for running everyday business.
The problem is the concerns of sharing your privacy, your data, your information over the cloud. Because of course — you're telling the cloud, where is the cloud? It's an abstract thing. You send over the cloud your customers, your clients, your information, your private data, your projects, your patents, your new inventions. Who is on the other side? Who is on the other side of the wire?
We are training these models. Everybody is saying "oh, they are getting better and better" — how do they get better? Of course, with speaking to them every day. So you literally train, with your secrets and your data and your customer information, an unknown pool of data which is in the cloud.
The Hidden Cost of Token-Based AI
Giorgio Zanetti: These tokens that you rent, that you pay, that cost more and more because of the electricity — they probably give you the tokens for free now, but they will not be forever because they're spending billions of dollars for electricity. The thing is that you are using these tokens, and these tokens are to train the next models. And actually the privacy that everybody wants is gone.
When you run any kind of business — it can be an engineering company, a law firm, a clinic, or a small business — nobody wants to share over the cloud. One thing is ChatGPT — "how do I run the dishwasher?" — one a different story is to run your company on AI.
The Zanus AI Solution: Private, Unlimited, Owned
Giorgio Zanetti: Zanus AI is focused on making a private AI server and software system, a one solution that is never connecting to the cloud. And in this way you have privacy, unlimited tokens. It's never a rental surprise.
The most important thing after the privacy is the cost. Right now everybody says "oh I give you a million tokens for no money." But one picture is 30,000 tokens. So if you're running a business with three people and you are doing a real serious job every day, the 1 million tokens is going to be thousands of dollars a day.
The cost of a Zanus AI is really less than the cost of a manager, and it works 24/7 for you. So you can run your business — it's learning your rules, it's learning your documents, it knows exactly what you want. It can do projects, you can do design, you can manage customers. It can be used for any medical or business application, financial application, because we have all the security.
Designed for the Office, Not the Server Room
Giorgio Zanetti: Our system is redundant, completely quiet, can be installed in any office without the crazy noise everybody knows that these servers do — you put one of these servers in and it's screaming, you cannot stay in the office. The Zanus AI has been designed for the business. So you put it in your office, you connect the network, and immediately you create a user. At that point, it learns from you and it stays on your premises. Never leaves your premises.
No Cloud Connection — At All
Rich Tehrani: It sounds to me like it's very similar to what we've seen in the last couple weeks with Open Cloud but with the security built in and with some kind of management of cost. Or am I missing it?
Giorgio Zanetti: Well, we don't use the cloud at all. We have our own GPU system inside the box. What happens is that you do not connect to GPT or any other provider.
Rich Tehrani: Yeah, it's a safer solution or alternative than some of these other ones that are kind of more open and their security is questionable.
Giorgio Zanetti: Exactly. So the key point is: no tokens, no rental, no security sharing, no data sharing. HIPAA compliance and all the other compliance — we can run really any possible kind of business without risking to train the next model with your secrets. Because the data and every other information stays on your server, in your office, on your premises. Nothing is leaving the building — ever.
Rich Tehrani: And it sounds like it's great for personal information, GDPR, sovereign data, law firms that can't risk it.
Five LLMs Running Locally with Intelligent Routing
Luca Zanetti: Yeah, absolutely. And also the way it works is completely modular. We have an inbox where you can literally drop any possible file format — from DXF to pictures to videos.
We run five LLMs inside. So the system is picking up — it's working actually depending on the moment with the proper LLM. So it's not one engine — it's an intelligent system that decides if you are looking at a video, scanning a picture, or understanding an email.
The unit can be connected to any existing software. So the integration is easy. At that point, you can build on this information cases or projects, depending on the business. Every project can be with or without a customer. You can add the libraries, so the answers are not hallucinating.
Consistent Performance — No Throttling
Luca Zanetti: This is a very important thing, because what everybody hates is — you ask in the morning something to this cloud AI and they have good content at the moment, the bandwidth is there. But in the afternoon, the very same thing doesn't work anymore and starts saying crazy things. Because they have to share the same amount of computing with millions of people.
This is your machine. It never throttles the bandwidth. Never throttles the tokens. Never throttles the context. If you start working in the morning, you keep going. You can keep going in the afternoon without losing the context.
The Time Machine Feature
Luca Zanetti: We have a new function called Time Machine — like video editing, you can scroll back and forth into the timeline of a project and see exactly with summaries what happened. So a lawyer can go back in time or go forward in time on a case for a customer and take the right decision and generate the decision.
Depending on the application, the system is really complete. It comes with all the software that is already designed by us. We have packages for enterprises, for small business, for lawyers, for clinics — many.
Pricing: One-Time Purchase, Financing Available
Rich Tehrani: And how do you charge?
Luca Zanetti: We have a very simple model — we do not rent, we sell the system. When you buy the system, it's a one-time payment. We also do financing. For example, just to give a dimension of what we're talking about: it can cost $3,500 a month for three years and it's yours. It's unlimited.
Custom AI Apps — Like iPhone Apps for Your Business
Luca Zanetti: If you want something very specific for your company, for your business, for your application — risk assessment, insurance, any possible business — you can ask us to do an app. What is an app? An app is a sequencer with multiple agents that understand your question and design and output your desired outcome. You can build your own agent and integrate it, or we can do it for you.
Like the iPhone — you can add an app and it's yours. And it's private. It's your business. Nobody will learn from your secret. When cloud AI comes out with the next version of their chat, they will not serve your business secrets as common ground for everybody else.
So no — they will not tell everybody how you make your own pasta so everybody can do the same pasta. Your pasta will stay yours. I'm saying this because I'm Italian, of course — so I like to talk about pasta.
Find Out More
Rich Tehrani: How do people find out more about your company?
Giorgio Zanetti: You can come to us at zanusai.com or you can reach out to us at [email protected].
About the Speakers
Rich Tehrani is the CEO of TMC and Group Editor-in-Chief of TMCnet. He hosts interviews at ITEXPO, the Generative AI Expo, and other TMC events, covering the latest innovations in communications and enterprise technology.
Luca Zanetti is the CTO and Technical Director of Zanus AI, responsible for the engineering of the private AI server platform. With 25+ years of experience in broadcast and enterprise hardware, he leads the development of Zanus AI's hardware-software integration.
Giorgio Zanetti is the Chief Marketing Officer of Zanus AI, overseeing marketing, communications, and technical information. He brings decades of experience in B2B technology marketing and product positioning.
