Why I built this.
It started with a bad back.
Ten years of chronic upper-back pain will make you try weird things to avoid sitting rigidly at a desk. I didn't start writing this code because I saw a gap in the market. I just wanted to be able to work while lying down so my muscles would stop hurting.
The accidental discovery.
I started messing around with open source local speech-to-text models to see if I could dictate instead of type. The early prototypes were rough. But then I found a model that actually worked, and everything clicked. It was fast and accurate. My back pain got better, and I realized I was suddenly talking to my computer way more than I was typing.
Going back to typing sucked.
When you build an app using the app itself, things inevitably break. Every time I had to fall back to the keyboard, I hated it. It wasn't just about speed. Speaking lets you dump massive amounts of chaotic, unfiltered context. You can say things you would never bother typing because it feels like a waste of time. The AI doesn't care if you ramble. It figures it out. The keyboard is a massive bottleneck.
The IKEA Allen wrench problem.
Right now, every chat app and productivity tool is adding their own basic voice feature. It is the software equivalent of the tiny Allen wrench you get with IKEA furniture. It barely works and it only does one specific thing. I wanted a professional dictation tool that works across my entire computer, entirely independent of whatever app happens to be in focus.
Eating my own dogfood.
I use MachinesFluent for several hours every single day. I don't type code anymore. I dictate what I want, and the AI writes it. That is how this application was built. I built it for myself first. Even if nobody else cared about it, I would still maintain it because I need it to do my job.
A new category of software.
Everyone already has a web browser and a note-taking app. Soon, everyone will have a system-level dictation tool too. It is going to become standard software. I just built the version that respects your privacy and lets you plug in whatever AI provider you want instead of keeping you locked in.