GDPR-Compliant AI for Business: 5 Providers Fact-Checked (2026)
GDPR-compliant and out of reach of US law are two different questions for business AI. We checked five providers that sell to European companies (Infomaniak AI Tools, Privatemode, LightOn, Langdock and MeinGPT) on their DPAs, sub-processors, default models and the clouds underneath, plus the open-weight model APIs of four EU-owned clouds.
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GDPR-compliant is not the same as out of US reach
Ask which AI is GDPR-compliant and the common answer is: use Azure OpenAI or AWS Bedrock in Frankfurt. That answer is correct about GDPR and incomplete about everything else. An EU region with a data processing agreement settles where data is processed; it does not change that Microsoft, Amazon and Google are US companies, reachable under the US CLOUD Act wherever their servers stand. For a works council, a data protection officer or a procurement team handling client data, both questions matter.
We checked five providers that sell AI to European companies against their own documents: who operates the service, where chats and files are stored, which model runs by default and on whose infrastructure. The first three keep US-owned clouds out of the content path; the last two are German companies with strong paperwork whose default models run on US-owned clouds in EU regions. Full category: sovereign AI.
The picks, side by side
| Signal | Infomaniak AI Tools | Privatemode | LightOn | Langdock | MeinGPT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jurisdiction | |||||
| EU / adequacy hosting | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| EU / adequacy operator | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| No US CLOUD Act exposure | Yes | Not assessed | Not assessed | No | No |
| Transparency | |||||
| Public DPA | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Sub-processors disclosed | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Open-source clients | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Third-party certification | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
1. Infomaniak AI Tools: the cleanest managed chain
Infomaniak, the Geneva company listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange since October 2026 and controlled by its foundation, serves open-weight models through an OpenAI-compatible API with function calling, plus embeddings, transcription and image generation, and the free Euria assistant for staff. Inference runs in Infomaniak's own Swiss data centres on hardware it owns, prompts are not used for training, and the DPA is public; Infomaniak holds ISO 27001 and Switzerland has an EU adequacy decision. CLOUD Act exposure: None. Billing is per token in Swiss francs, with free credits to start. The trade-off is model choice: strong open-weight models, no proprietary frontier model. Full profile
Swiss sovereign-AI API + Euria assistant (Infomaniak, Geneva, since 1994); open-source LLMs served on own Swiss DCs, no training on user data, no CLOUD Act.
- From
- —
- CLOUD Act
- None
2. Privatemode: confidentiality you can verify
Privatemode from Edgeless Systems in Bochum (founder-controlled, ownership: EU-owned) is built on confidential computing. The client checks a hardware attestation before it sends anything, and prompts are decrypted only inside memory-encrypted machines with NVIDIA GPUs at Scaleway (France) and Lyceum (Berlin), the two infrastructure providers in its public DPA; nothing is stored after the request. It offers an OpenAI-compatible API, which also accepts Anthropic's message format, and a browser chat, with open-weight models priced per token from €0.20 per million input tokens. Edgeless holds ISO 27001. CLOUD Act exposure: Minor, because sign-in, the account portal, billing and web-app delivery use US services that the DPA does not list. Full profile
Confidential AI chat and OpenAI-compatible API from Bochum: open models run in attested, memory-encrypted GPU enclaves on Scaleway and Lyceum in the EU, with prompts unreadable to the operator.
- From
- —
- CLOUD Act
- Minor
3. LightOn: on-premise for regulated organisations
LightOn, listed on Euronext Growth in Paris since 2024 and French-owned, sells Paradigm, a generative-AI platform designed to run inside the customer's own perimeter, with a hybrid option on European cloud GPUs and a managed service. Its customer list leans towards French public sector, defence and insurance. In an on-premise deployment, documents and prompts never leave your network, which is the strongest position in this article if you can operate it. The managed service has a free starter tier with pay-as-you-go usage and a Business plan at €149 a month on an annual licence. Two gaps: the DPA is not public, and the privacy policy names a US error-monitoring service, hence CLOUD Act exposure: Minor. Full profile
Paris-based enterprise GenAI (Paradigm platform), Europe's first publicly-listed GenAI company on Euronext Growth Paris, on-premise-first.
- From
- €149/mo
- CLOUD Act
- Minor
4. Langdock: the most complete workspace, on Azure
Langdock from Berlin is a model-agnostic AI workspace with chat, agents, workflows and an API, and its paperwork is the most complete here: a public DPA, a sub-processor register, a summary of the terms agreed with each model provider and an ISO 27001 certificate in its own name. In August 2026 the company moved its parent from Delaware to a Berlin SE in which the founders control more than nine tenths of the votes (ownership: EU-owned). The platform itself runs on Microsoft Azure in Frankfurt, and prompts go to OpenAI, Anthropic and Google models through Azure, AWS and Google Cloud in EU regions with zero data retention; Mistral is the only EU-owned sub-processor. CLOUD Act exposure: Material. A seat costs €23.20 a month billed annually, models included. Full profile
Berlin-built enterprise AI workspace (chat, agents, workflows, API) for OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Mistral models; EU regions by default on Azure Frankfurt, parent moved from Delaware to a Berlin SE in 2026.
- From
- €23.20/mo
- CLOUD Act
- Material
5. MeinGPT: German hosting with an EU-only switch
MeinGPT from SelectCode near Munich, owner-managed and ISO 27001 certified, targets German mid-sized companies with chat, assistants, document search, meeting transcription and an API. Chats and files are stored on Hetzner servers in Germany, and the AVV with 21 sub-processor entries is public. The default "best model" setting, however, sends prompts to GPT-5 on Microsoft's Azure OpenAI in EU data centres, with Gemini on Google Vertex as fallback, and a few US-hosted models stay selectable unless an admin turns them off. An "EU only" setting limits use to Mistral and open-weight models on European infrastructure. CLOUD Act exposure as configured by default: Material. The licence costs €18 per user a month billed annually, with model usage paid separately. Full profile
AI workspace for German SMEs by SelectCode GmbH (Munich area): multi-model chat, assistants, RAG and API on Hetzner Germany; default prompts go to Azure OpenAI and Google Vertex EU regions.
- From
- €18/mo
- CLOUD Act
- Material
Building your own: open-weight models on EU-owned clouds
If you build AI into your own software, the four large EU-owned clouds now sell managed, OpenAI-compatible endpoints for open-weight models such as Llama, Qwen, Mistral and gpt-oss: STACKIT AI Model Serving (Schwarz Group, German data centres, generally available since May 2025), the IONOS AI Model Hub (German data centres, with an ionosGPT chat for non-technical staff), Scaleway Generative APIs (Paris, with a free tier) and OVHcloud AI Endpoints (OVHcloud's own European data centres). We have not yet listed these AI services separately; the cloud operators behind them carry these CLOUD Act ratings: STACKIT, None; IONOS, None; Scaleway, None; OVHcloud, None. Paired with a self-hosted chat interface, they are the most direct way to keep both the model and the infrastructure in European hands.
A six-point check before you sign
- DPA: is it public and current, or only on request? A public DPA lets your data protection officer review it before the sales call.
- Sub-processors: who runs the application and database, and who runs inference? These are often different companies.
- Default model: which model answers when users change nothing, through which provider and region? Defaults decide where most prompts go.
- Admin controls: can administrators restrict users to EU-hosted or EU-owned models and switch off everything else?
- Storage and retention: where are chats, files and embeddings stored, for how long, and is zero data retention agreed with the model providers?
- Exit path for sensitive data: for client files, health or HR data, use a chain without US-owned providers (Infomaniak, Privatemode, LightOn on-premise, or open-weight models on an EU-owned cloud), and keep the convenient multi-model workspace for everything else.
None of the five providers is the wrong choice for every company. The question is which data goes where, and each profile links the vendor's own documents so you can check the chain yourself.
Frequently asked questions
- Is ChatGPT GDPR-compliant for business use?
- It can be used lawfully, on the right plan. For users in the EEA the service is provided by OpenAI's Irish entity, OpenAI offers a data processing agreement for its business plans and API, business data is not used for training by default, and OpenAI has offered data residency in Europe for eligible business customers since 2025. What GDPR paperwork does not change is ownership: OpenAI's group is headquartered in the US, so the US CLOUD Act can reach data it controls wherever it is stored. Consumer accounts used for work are the real risk, because they lack a business DPA and admin controls.
- Is Azure OpenAI or AWS Bedrock in Frankfurt safe from the CLOUD Act?
- They solve data residency, not jurisdiction. Running GPT models through Azure OpenAI in an EU data zone, or Claude through AWS Bedrock in Frankfurt, keeps processing and storage in Europe and comes with the provider's EU data processing terms, which is enough for many GDPR assessments. Microsoft and Amazon are US companies, however, and the CLOUD Act applies to data they control regardless of region. That is why every platform in this article that routes prompts through those services is recorded with material CLOUD Act exposure, even when the platform itself is German-owned and German-hosted.
- Which AI tools are GDPR-compliant for companies?
- All five providers in this article publish or offer a DPA and process data in Europe, so all five can be part of a GDPR-compliant setup. They differ on the second question, US reach. Infomaniak AI Tools runs inference on its own Swiss hardware (CLOUD Act exposure: None); Privatemode keeps prompts in attested, encrypted machines at EU providers (Minor exposure); LightOn deploys on-premise by default (Minor exposure); Langdock and MeinGPT are German-owned but send prompts through US-owned clouds by default (Langdock: Material; MeinGPT: Material).
- Are Claude and Gemini GDPR-compliant?
- Both can be used under GDPR-compliant terms: Anthropic and Google offer business data processing terms, and both model families are available in EU regions, Claude through AWS Bedrock and Google Vertex, Gemini through Google Cloud and Workspace. Anthropic and Google are US companies, so the same jurisdiction point applies as for OpenAI and Azure. European workspaces such as Langdock and MeinGPT give access to these models with EU region pinning and zero data retention agreed with the providers, which improves the GDPR position but does not remove the US provider from the chain.
- What is the difference between GDPR-compliant AI and sovereign AI?
- GDPR compliance is about lawful processing: a valid legal basis, a data processing agreement, transfer safeguards and security measures. A US cloud region in Frankfurt can meet that bar. Sovereignty asks a further question: can a non-EU government compel any company in the chain to hand over the data? For that, the operator, its parent and the infrastructure provider all have to sit outside US jurisdiction. Our CLOUD Act rating measures that second question separately from the paperwork.
- How was this comparison verified?
- Each provider was checked against its published DPA, sub-processor list, privacy policy, imprint and commercial-register filings, and the public endpoints were resolved to see which network actually answers. Findings are dated on each profile and re-checked quarterly. The order is editorial and never sponsored; where we earn an affiliate commission, the page says so.
Methodology
For every product we read the public DPA, sub-processors document, hosting region declaration, and corporate ownership records. Each is timestamped. Signals are editorial, re-verified quarterly. We never accept self-attestation.