The origin layer
Capture the human before the model speaks.
AI makes it easy to produce. It makes it hard to tell who thought what. The origin layer is the part of the record that answers that question: what a person expressed before anything was generated, and how their thinking developed after.
The model forgets. Origo remembers.
Two different questions
What touched this file? What did this person think?
Content Credentials, built on the open C2PA standard, are an important step for media provenance. They attach a signed record to a file showing which tools created or edited it, so a reader can see that a camera, an editor, or a generator touched an asset.
A file history is about the file. It does not record what a person brought to the work before a model was involved: the first idea, the question they asked, the suggestion they pushed back on, the decision they made. A missing credential does not show that a human made something, either.
That is the gap the origin layer is designed for. It sits before generation, at the moment a person expresses something, and it keeps human and machine contributions separate from then on.
File-level credentials compared with the origin layer
| File-level credentials (C2PA and similar) | The origin layer (Origo) | |
|---|---|---|
| The question it answers | What touched this asset? | What did this person express before AI answered? |
| What it describes | A finished file: an image, video, audio clip, or document, with its edit history. | A person's own words and how they developed: notes, transcripts, responses, decisions. |
| Where AI appears | As a tool that generated or edited the file. | As separate, labeled output, linked to the exact version of the words it used. |
| When it is recorded | When the file is created or edited. | Before the model speaks. Saving your words does not depend on any model. |
The two are complementary. Origo does not replace Content Credentials and does not claim conformance with the C2PA specification.
How it works
Four commitments, in order.
Each step says plainly whether it works today in Origo's private alpha or is still being built.
- 01
Capture the human first
Working in private alpha
Your note, or the transcript of what you said, is saved as a source record with its capture time. Saving it does not depend on any model, and a source is not silently rewritten: a correction becomes a new version and the earlier one is kept.
- 02
Keep the machine separate
Working in private alpha
When you ask AI a question, the answer is stored as its own record, apart from your sources, with the model identifier and links to the exact source versions it retrieved. Complete provider attribution is still in development.
- 03
Record what you did with it
Partly built
You can already link your own continuation to an answer. The full sequence, where you adopt, qualify, or reject a suggestion and the machine origin stays visible even after you adopt it, is in development.
- 04
Make later changes detectable
Working in private alpha
The record carries integrity evidence, and its root is witnessed outside Origo. An operator export has been checked offline against that evidence. Pocket Chronicle's local export is a different profile and does not carry it.
Continuity
The model forgets. Origo remembers.
A conversation with AI ends. Context windows fill. Providers retire models. What you worked out in that conversation should not depend on any of them.
Origo keeps your contributions in a record you govern, so the thinking outlives the session. The goal is to reopen a saved sequence, inspect what went into it, and continue with the same or a different model. Resuming across models is a development goal, not a shipped capability.
See the five-step thinking sequenceTake the next step
Keep the origin of your thinking.
Origo is in private alpha, and Pocket Chronicle for iPhone targets November 2026. Teams can talk with us about a pilot.
Both links open an email to begin@helloorigo.com.