Proton Launches Lumo: A Privacy-First AI Assistant with End-to-End Encryption

Proton's new privacy-first AI assistant encrypts all chats, keeps no logs | TechCrunch

Privacy-focused productivity tools maker Proton on Wednesday released its AI assistant, called Lumo, which it says prioritizes protecting user data. The company says the chatbot keeps no logs of your conversations, has end-to-end encryption for storing chats, and offers a ghost mode for conversations that disappear as soon as you close the window. Available via a web client, as well as Android and iOS apps, Lumo doesn't require you to have an account to use the chatbot and ask questions. You can upload files to have the chatbot answer questions about them, and if you have a Proton Drive account, you can connect it with Lumo to access files stored in the cloud. While the chatbot has access to the web, it might not find you the latest results if you use it to search. Proton seems intent on making it clear that its focus is on privacy. The company says Lumo is based on open-source models, and it will only depend on them for research and development going forward without utilizing user data to train its models. It also said Lumo relies on zero-access encryption, an encryption method that other Proton products also use, to let users store their conversation history, which can be decrypted on the device. Throughout its blog post about Lumo, Proton emphasized its European base, saying it gives the company a leg up over AI companies based in the U.S. and China when it comes to privacy. "Lumo is based upon open-source language models and operates from Proton's European datacenters. This gives you much greater transparency into the way Lumo works than any other major AI assistant. Unlike Apple Intelligence and others, Lumo is not a partnership with OpenAI or other American or Chinese AI companies, and your queries are never sent to any third parties," Proton said. This is not Proton's first foray into the fast-developing AI tools space: Last year, it rolled out an AI-powered writing assistant for its Mail product that also runs on the user's device.

Lumo Is Proton's Privacy-First Alternative to ChatGPT and Other AI Chatbots

Moe enjoys making technical content digestible and fun. As a writer and editor for over a decade, he has bylines at MakeUseOf, WhistleOut, TechBeacon, DZone, Tech Up Your Life, and Electromaker. When he's not hammering away at the keyboard, Moe enjoys spending time with his partner and dog, listening to vinyl, and watching film. Proton, the company behind Proton VPN, Proton Mail and Proton Pass, is dipping its toes into the increasingly crowded artificial intelligence swimming pool. The company announced a privacy-first generative AI assistant, named Lumo, on Wednesday, which aims to be a ChatGPT alternative for folks concerned about how their data is being used. Proton VPN is one of my favorite virtual private networks because it doesn't cut corners on privacy while also being user-friendly, fast and great for unblocking streaming services like Netflix. In addition to its VPN service, Proton offers a productivity suite including a password manager, cloud storage and an email client. Where Proton differs from competitors like Google and Yahoo is with its focus on privacy and security -- Proton Mail, for instance, touts end-to-end encryption so only you can read your emails. That focus on privacy makes Proton stand out from other AI chatbot services, which tend to be hungrier for user data. Proton's Lumo AI assistant is free to use, but there's a paid Lumo Plus upgrade that costs $13 a month (or $120 a year on the annual plan). Lumo Plus provides unlimited chats, unlimited chat favorites, an extended chat history and the ability to upload both large and multiple files. You can use Lumo in a web browser or download an Android or iOS mobile app. Signing in with a Proton account lets you store and view conversations while still maintaining zero-access encryption, according to the company. Here's everything you need to know about Proton's Lumo gen AI assistant, from what it is and how it works to unique privacy features that aim to set it apart from chatbot competitors. There are tons of AI chatbots, including ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini. AI chatbots are powered by large language models, or LLMs, and require extensive human-created data to train on. The information LLMs are trained on can come from various sources, like content published on the internet, as well as user inputs. For instance, if you ask ChatGPT a question, the LLM will usually learn from your responses to it to get a more personalized response in the future (unless you've specifically turned that setting off). But Proton's Lumo AI assistant strives to set itself apart from other chatbots by providing better privacy and encryption than its competitors. According to Proton, conversations with Lumo are confidential, meaning they're not used to train the company's LLM and are only "readable" on your device. The company claims that your user chats are stored using Proton's zero-access encryption, so they can only be decrypted on your device. Like other artificial intelligence-powered chatbots, Lumo can be used for various purposes, from asking fundamental questions like the best ways to stay hydrated in the summer heat to rewriting an email or assistance with coding and programming. In an effort to boost privacy, Lumo will not search the web by default, but you can enable it, which will give Lumo access to what the company calls "privacy-friendly search engines" for accessing real-time information. I've reached out to Proton for more information about what search engines Lumo specifically uses. In addition to web search, Lumo lets you upload files for analysis, and there's integration with the company's cloud storage solution, Proton Drive, which is an open-source alternative to Google Drive. Another element that makes Lumo unique is the jurisdiction of its parent company. Jurisdiction for companies can be important, particularly for privacy-focused services like VPNs. And unlike many of the major chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT or Google's Gemini, Proton's Lumo is subject to Swiss law -- a company outside of the Five, Nine and 14 Eyes data-sharing alliances. Theoretically, if Lumo truly isn't learning from your data and all of your chats remain encrypted, with decryption limited to your device, your information shouldn't be accessible to Proton or any third parties. But Proton's privacy-friendly jurisdiction may be nice for folks with serious privacy concerns, like investigative journalists, asylum seekers or political activists. Proton VPN Founder and CEO Andy Yen said in a press release, "Big Tech is using AI to supercharge the collection of sensitive user data to accelerate the world's transition to surveillance capitalism. For this reason, we believe it is essential to provide an alternative that protects privacy and serves users as opposed to exploiting them. AI should not become the world's most powerful surveillance tool, and our vision for Lumo is AI that puts people ahead of profits." Proton has a strong reputation for privacy and security, but you'll ultimately need to trust that the company lives up to its promises. Proton has a solid track record with transparency, undergoing annual audits with its VPN product and publishing annual transparency reports. Nearly every VPN company boasts about a strict no-logs policy, and while zero-log claims can't be completely verified without any uncertainty, audits offer important trust signals for its users. Privacy is a major concern with AI. Perusing an AI's privacy policy and terms of service can help give you a sense of how your data is being used. But it's difficult to verify that an AI chatbot isn't training on user data. But because Lumo is open-source, like the rest of Proton's apps -- including Proton Mail, Calendar, Drive, VPN, Pass and Wallet -- anyone can view the source code to inspect for bugs or vulnerabilities. You'll still need to take the company's claims at face value and with a grain of salt, but by keeping its artificial intelligence assistant open-source, Proton aims to bolster its trust and transparency. With its excellent overall privacy and transparency exhibited in its other apps, Proton offers peace of mind that may extend to its Lumo chatbot.

Proton is launching a privacy-focused AI chatbot

Emma Roth is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO. Proton, the company behind the encrypted email service Proton Mail, has launched an AI assistant aimed at preserving user privacy. The new chatbot, called Lumo, can summarize documents, generate code, write emails, and more, while storing data locally on users' devices. Proton says it will protect this information using "zero-access" encryption, which grants users an encryption key that only they can use to view their content, preventing third parties, including Proton, from accessing the information. This helps ensure that Proton can't share user data with advertisers or governments, or use it for training large language models, Proton says. Though Lumo comes with the ability to search the web, Proton turns this feature off by default to "give users maximum privacy." If users enable the feature, Lumo will search the web for answers using "privacy-friendly" search engines. Additionally, Proton says Lumo can analyze uploaded files, but it doesn't save any of its information. Users can link Proton Drive files to Lumo as well, which are supposed to stay end-to-end encrypted when interacting with the chatbot. Proton positions its AI chatbot as an alternative to the ones offered by larger companies, like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Meta AI, Google's Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot. "Big Tech is using AI to supercharge the collection of sensitive user data to accelerate the world's transition to surveillance capitalism," Andy Yen, the CEO and founder of Proton, says in the announcement. "Our vision for Lumo is AI that puts people ahead of profits." Lumo is powered by several open-source large language models that run on Proton's servers in Europe, including Mistral's Nemo, Mistral Small 3, Nvidia's OpenHands 32B, and the Allen Institute for AI's OLMO 2 32B model. The AI chatbot will field requests through different models depending on which is better-suited for the query. "For instance, programming-related questions are handled by OpenHands, which specializes in coding tasks," Proton spokesperson Betsy Jones tells The Verge. You can access Lumo now by heading to lumo.proton.me, or downloading the Lumo app for iOS and Android. Users who don't have an account with Lumo or Proton can only ask the chatbot a "limited number" of questions each week, and they won't be able to access their chat histories. Meanwhile, users with a free account can view an encrypted chat history, upload small files, and favorite a limited number of chats. There's also a $12.99-per-month Lumo Plus plan for access to unlimited chats, extended encrypted chat history, unlimited favorites, and the ability to upload large files.

Proton's New Lumo AI Chatbot Puts Privacy First With Its ChatGPT Alternative

The company behind the privacy-focused Proton Mail has now introduced its first AI assistant with a key aim of protecting your data. There's a new competitor for your AI chatbot of choice, and this one is focused on privacy. Proton, the company behind services like Proton Mail and VPN, has now launched its first AI assistant. The new chatbot is called Lumo, and it's designed to focus on privacy above all else. Proton says, "Lumo keeps your conversations confidential and your data fully under your control -- never shared, sold, or stolen." The company cites how many chatbot users want to talk to services on confidential topics like personal information, health problems, or sometimes even complicated legal documents. Proton says Lumo is the right chatbot to use to protect your data, even though its features are more limited than alternatives like ChatGPT or Google Gemini. There's no image generation or voice based search here, but Lumo can do key tasks like searching the web, writing text, analyzing files, and more. Lumo turns off all web access by default, but you can manually turn it on with a small button at the bottom of the prompt box. It's easy to then toggle on and off depending on what you're searching and how much data you're willing to share online. Other elements of Proton's privacy promise include that it will never use your data to train its AI, logs of your chats are deleted (and they're encrypted during the process), and it won't ever share your data with any external sources. There's also a feature called Ghost mode that allows you to have disappearing chats with Lumo. Use this in a similar way to an incognito mode when you don't want the browser to follow what you've been doing. If you're a Proton user already, you can also integrate the chatbot directly with its Drive tool to help it read your documents. Proton Lumo is available on the web as well as through Android and iOS. The app is available now, and it's free to use for up to 100 messages per a month. To get unlimited queries, you'll need to sign up to Lumo Plus for $12.99 a month or $9.99 a month through an annual subscription. If you're on a Proton Unlimited subscription, you won't get access to Lumo Plus and you'll have to pay extra to access. Those on Proton Visionary or Lifetime accounts get access to Lumo Plus without paying extra.

Proton launches privacy-respecting encrypted AI assistant Lumo

Proton has launched a new tool called Lumo, offering a privacy-first AI assistant that does not log user conversations and doesn't use their prompts for training. Proton is a Swiss company behind proven privacy and security tools and services, including Proton Mail, Proton VPN, and Proton Drive. In June 2024, it transitioned to a non-profit structure, putting user privacy over profits. The introduction of Lumo aligns with this mission, as Proton claims this AI tool is designed to provide help without tracking users, retaining or sharing their data, and hiding risky functions in closed-source code. Instead, Lumo is based on open-source large language models (LLMs) and utilizes Proton's open-source encryption scheme. Proton also released the tool's complete source code, so it's fully transparent to the community. Lumo's default setting is not to search online, delete all chats upon closing, and not store conversations on the server-side. "Other AI companies keep a record of all your conversations on their servers, leaving this information vulnerable to data leaks or exploitation for profit," reads the announcement. "Lumo doesn't keep any logs of your conversations server side, and any chats you save can only be decrypted on your device." Lumo's interface resembles those of mainstream LLM services, while the tool supports file uploads with full encryption support. For ultimate security, direct uploads from Proton Drive are also supported. Lumo's infrastructure is located in Europe, where the GDPR applies, so no sensitive data is transmitted to jurisdictions with weaker data protection regulations. Lumo is available at lumo.proton.me or as an app for Android and iOS devices. The service is offered via three account tiers, summarized as follows: At launch, Lumo supports and responds in English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian, with additional languages to be added gradually.

Proton's privacy-focused Lumo chatbot encrypts all your conversations

What's another AI chatbot in an already crowded field? That's the question Proton is trying to answer today with the release of its new . And like with its best known service, , the company says Lumo is for those who want a private alternative to what big tech is offering. Proton says every conversation with Lumo is secured with zero-access encryption, meaning only your device can unlock your content. In the context of an AI chatbot, that has several implications. Most notably, it means not even Proton can view your chats. As a result, the company can't share your data with governments, advertisers or, for that matter, any other company, and it can't use your data to train future AI models. "By using Lumo, you can enjoy the benefits of an advanced AI assistant without the risk of your data being misused," says Proton. I briefly tried Lumo. It's a bit slow to generate a response, but you can broadly expect a similar experience to what you would find using ChatGPT or Claude for free. Lumo can search the web to answer questions beyond its knowledge cut-off date, but by default that feature is turned off to further protect user privacy. You can also upload files to Lumo. Here again Proton says the chatbot won't save any information. Proton isn't touting the performance of Lumo's large language models, but if you're curious about this sort of thing, it's powered by a handful of open-source systems, including Mistral NeMo and Mistral Small 3, among others. Proton Lumo will filter requests through the model best suited for the task. For example, it will use NVIDIA's OpenHands system for coding requests. Lumo is free to use, with a weekly query limit. You don't need a Proton account to begin a conversation with the chatbot. In addition to being , Proton offers both Android and iOS apps. A $13 per month Plus plan offers unlimited usage, alongside perks like larger uploads, access to more advanced AI models, priority support and more.

Proton launches Lumo, a privacy-focused AI chatbot

Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. TL;DR: Proton recently introduced Lumo, a new chatbot service designed with a focus on confidentiality and security. Billed as a "privacy-first" AI tool, Lumo aims to deliver the benefits of modern artificial intelligence without compromising user privacy or misusing personal data. While results may vary, Proton appears confident enough to position Lumo alongside established competitors in the AI market. The idea behind Lumo is that while AI can provide significant opportunities for users and businesses, it also introduces new risks related to personal data collection. According to Proton, Big Tech is leveraging AI to accelerate the surveillance-capitalism business model rooted in advertising. Corporations are now harvesting vast amounts of user data, often without clearly seeking consent. Lumo aims to deliver the benefits of AI without demanding access to personal data. Like other chatbots, it can summarize sensitive legal documents, answer private health questions, or rewrite personal emails. However, Lumo incorporates a range of safeguards specifically designed to protect user privacy. Lumo stores no chat logs, doesn't share any data with third-party vendors or government agencies, and doesn't exploit user information to train new AI models. The chatbot is also protected by zero-access encryption, an open-source technology designed to prevent third parties from accessing users' content. Lumo is built on several open-source AI models, including European projects developed by Mistral. Proton emphasizes that these models are operated from its European data centers, which should enhance transparency and reduce the risk of abuse by US or Chinese AI companies. The Geneva-based company compares Lumo to services like Gemini, Copilot, and other commercial AI tools, which it claims are focused on turning users into sources of profit. Lumo also includes a few productivity-focused features, allowing users to upload files or search the web. The search feature is disabled by default and is built around privacy-friendly engines. Lumo is available for free to both guests using the web version and users of the official Android or iOS apps. A $13-per-month subscription is also offered, unlocking additional capabilities such as unlimited chats, extended encrypted chat history, and more. We tried stress-testing Lumo with some controversial topics and found that the chatbot is likely designed to avoid such interactions. This suggests that while Proton's service may protect your privacy, it still enforces content restrictions similar to those of more traditional chatbots.

Proton's ChatGPT rival is prioritizing privacy with encrypted chats and zero logs

You can use the chatbot even without signing up for or logging into your existing Proton account. However, logging in will enable a history of your chats. But even then, these chats are stored locally on your device and do not sync across multiple devices. Proton says its privacy-first approach ensures that data is never used to train or refine AI models. It doesn't reveal the encryption standard but compares Lumo with other services, such as Proton Mail, which use OpenPGP with AES-256 or ChaCha20 for end-to-end network encryption. There is no information available about the underlying language models either, but the company says it utilizes open-source AI models built in Europe. It further denies any association with OpenAI or any American or Chinese AI company.

Proton Is Also Making Its Own Assistant

Summary Proton introduces Lumo, a secure AI assistant maintaining strict privacy standards. No server-side conversation logs are kept. Lumo uses open-source large language models optimized by Proton. Code is open-source for public review. Lumo offers familiar tasks like text summarization and email drafting. Lumo Plus tier available for $12.99/month. Typically, Proton's products are pretty useful. This one, though, I'm not sure what to think of it. Proton is the latest company to join the AI bandwagon with a new AI assistant -- and really, I'm not sure anyone needs this. Proton has just announced Lumo, a new "privacy-first" AI assistant. It's just like your regular, run-of-the-mill AI assistants, but it sticks to Proton's strict privacy and security standards. The company states it maintains no server-side logs of user conversations -- chat histories are stored on the user's device using zero-access encryption, a security model already employed across Proton's suite of products. This encryption ensures that only the user can decrypt and read their chats. Conversations with Lumo are not used to train any underlying large language models (LLMs). It's not like Proton has its own, anyway. The company says that the assistant is built upon open-source LLMs that Proton has optimized and hosts itself. This could mean models like Google's Gemma, Meta's Llama, and excludes proprietary ones like Google Gemini or OpenAI's GPT. We don't have a specific list of models Lumo supports. The assistant's own code is open-source for public review, just like everything by Proton is. This allows independent experts to verify its security claims. The service runs on Proton-controlled servers in Europe, placing it under Switzerland's robust privacy laws and outside of US jurisdiction. Related Proton Drive Review: It Could Be So Much More A secure cloud storage service that misses the mark. Posts 3 As for what you can do with Lumo, well, a lot of the things you can already do with other assistants. Lumo can perform a range of tasks, including summarizing text, assisting with coding, and drafting emails. It includes several features designed around data control. By default, Lumo does not search the web for answers, but you can enable this feature, and Proton will use privacy-respecting search engines to come up with results. You can also upload files for analysis, with the assurance that the contents are not stored on Proton's servers. The assistant integrates with Proton Drive, allowing you to analyze documents from their encrypted cloud storage securely. This is not exactly a new concept -- DuckDuckGo already has a "privacy-respecting" AI interface that you can use. I'm not forbidding Proton from doing something just because others have done it before, but frankly, it just seems like the company is jumping on the AI bandwagon for the sake of it -- either because it's the "trendy" thing or to appease investors. You might be better served by other options, too. The fact that Proton sticks only to "open-source" LLMs, while an ethical move, also greatly limits your choice of model and might mean that you won't be able to use your model of choice, but many might still be okay with the models offered. Lumo is free for Proton users, and there's a Lumo Plus tier that costs $12.99 a month (it's a separate subscription from Proton's own subscription tiers) and gives you things such as support for unlimited chats and the ability to upload larger files. Source: Proton

Proton throws shade at Apple Intelligence privacy as it launches AI chatbot

The company behind encrypted email service Proton Mail has today launched a new freemium AI chatbot which promises that your chats will remain completely private. Proton Lumo offers five protections it says aren't matched by any of the existing mainstream AI services like ChatGPT and Gemini, and has even thrown shade at Apple Intelligence privacy ... Proton said it launched Lumo because the benefits of AI are too great to miss, but the privacy risks are too serious to ignore. Whether we like it or not, AI is here to stay, but the current iterations of AI reflect a failure to learn from the past. That's why we built Lumo -- a private AI assistant that only works for you, not the other way around. With no logs kept and every chat encrypted, Lumo keeps your conversations confidential and your data fully under your control -- never shared, sold, or stolen. The company makes five privacy promises: Other AI companies keep a record of all your conversations on their servers, leaving this information vulnerable to data leaks or exploitation for profit. Lumo doesn't keep any logs of your conversations server side, and any chats you save can only be decrypted on your device. Your chats are stored using our battle-tested zero-access encryption, so even we can't read them, similar to other Proton services such as Proton Mail, Proton Drive, and Proton Pass. Our encryption is open source and trusted by over 100 million people to secure their data. Big Tech companies share your data with third-party vendors, advertisers, and government agencies for online surveillance. Lumo's no logs and encrypted architecture ensure we don't have data to share, and our European home gives you the benefit of robust privacy protections, outside of US jurisdiction. Unlike other AI services, Lumo doesn't use your conversations or inputs to train the large language model. When this kind of training occurs, your personal data could end up being used to generate outputs for others' conversations. Lumo won't ever expose you to this risk, which is especially important for businesses working with confidential material. Lumo is based upon open-source language models and operates from Proton's European datacenters. This gives you much greater transparency into the way Lumo works than any other major AI assistant. Apple Intelligence protects privacy in three ways. First, as much AI processing as possible is done on-device. Second, when more processing is needed, the default fallback is to Apple's own Private Cloud Compute (PCC) servers, which have "extraordinary" privacy protections. Third, where the last resort of fallback to ChatGPT is needed, this never happens without your permission, and Apple's agreement with OpenAI means that these sessions cannot log your requests nor use them for training. But it's that third area that Proton criticizes: Unlike Apple Intelligence and others, Lumo is not a partnership with OpenAI or other American or Chinese AI companies, and your queries are never sent to any third parties. Proton does not, however, include Apple Intelligence in its privacy comparison table. You can try Lumo here. As with other chatbots, you get a certain amount of usage for free, but need a paid subscription for more extensive use. Proton's criticism doesn't make sense given the special terms which apply to ChatGPT when accessed via Apple Intelligence. Additionally, the part about queries being sent to third parties would be equally true if Apple partnered with Proton instead of OpenAI, so ...

Proton's New AI Assistant Lumo Offers Encrypted Chat Alternative

Proton today launched Lumo, an AI assistant that promises to keep your conversations completely private. Best known for its encrypted Mail and VPN services, the Swiss company says it built Lumo as an alternative to mainstream AI tools that typically capitalize on users' data by using it to train their large language models (LLMs). Lumo can be used just like other AI chatbots (Open AI's ChatGPT or Google Gemini, for example) so it can do things like analyze documents, rewrite emails, and generate code. Proton says Lumo doesn't keep chat logs on its servers, and everything stays encrypted on your device using the same technology that protects the company's other services, so no one else can read your conversations - including Proton itself. The service runs on open-source AI models like Mistral's Nemo and Nvidia's OpenHands 32B. The models operate from European data centers that Proton says it controls directly. Users' questions and responses don't get fed back into the system to train future versions, so there's no risk of your private information showing up in someone else's chat. Lumo includes a "Ghost mode" that makes your current conversation disappear forever when you close it, while the assistant's web search feature (if you turn it on) uses privacy-friendly search engines. You can also link Proton Drive files to Lumo and everything stays encrypted. Lumo is free to use at Lumo.proton.me and does not require a Proton account when accessed. However, if you have a Proton account, your chat history can be saved using the company's "zero-access" encryption across all your devices. There are also mobile apps for iPhone and Android. For power users, Lumo Plus costs $12.99 per month and removes limits on chats and file uploads. Announcing the chatbot, Proton CEO Andy Yen said the company built Lumo because AI shouldn't become the world's most powerful surveillance tool. "For this reason, we believe it is essential to provide an alternative that protects privacy and serves users as opposed to exploiting them."

Look out ChatGPT - the creator of Proton Mail has just launched a new AI chatbot that's super-secure and private

Proton - the Swiss company behind apps including Proton Mail and Proton VPN - has launched its first AI product: Lumo. Lumo is an open-source AI assistant that's designed with an emphasis on to privacy. You can use it for all the same things you would use ChatGPT for, like summarizing documents, helping with code or rewriting emails, but you'll be safe in the knowledge that everything you share with Lumo is completely confidential, and only readable on your device. Proton guarantees that none of the information you give to Lumo will be used to train LLMs and can't be shared with third parties. I recently wrote about the dangers of unwittingly handing over sensitive information that's far more intimate than search or browsing history to AI companies, so Lumo's arrival is timely. Announcing Lumo, Andy Yen, Founder and CEO of Proton, said: "When we first launched Proton Mail a decade ago, our vision was to build a better alternative to Big Tech ecosystems for the benefit of all of society. Big Tech is using AI to supercharge the collection of sensitive user data to accelerate the world's transition to surveillance capitalism. "For this reason, we believe it is essential to provide an alternative that protects privacy and serves users as opposed to exploiting them. AI should not become the world's most powerful surveillance tool, and our vision for Lumo is AI that puts people ahead of profits." So, if you're looking for a European alternative to the big US and Chinese tech companies that are dominating the AI market right now, then Lumo could be a good idea. Lumo launches with key tools that we'd expect in an AI these days, including a web search, which is turned off by default for privacy but can be turned on. It has the ability to upload and analyze files, but unlike other AI assistants, no record is kept of any documents you upload. Finally, Lumo has Proton Dive integration for adding files to chats. The files will stay end-to-end encrypted. You can use Lumo for free, or upgrade to Lumo Plus for $12.99 a month (about £9 / AU$20). Lumo Plus gives you premium features including unlimited chats, extended chat history, unlimited chat favorites, and the ability to upload multiple and large files to Lumo. You can sign up to Lumo now at lumo.proton.me, and there are apps for iOS and Android. Since it's only just launched we haven't had a chance to compare Lumo to the more established chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini yet, but you can be sure we'll be putting it through its paces soon enough. Watch this space.

Proton's new Lumo AI is all about privacy

Proton is getting into generative AI with an assistant called Lumo, which it pitches as a more private alternative to ChatGPT. While Lumo will offer a similar chat-based interface with support for web search and file analysis, Proton says it won't store records of users' conversations or use them to train AI. Lumo is available for free on the web and mobile devices, with an optional $13-per-month or $120-per-year subscription for unlimited chats, extended chat history, and larger file uploads. Andy Yen, Proton's founder and CEO, says Lumo is a way for people to utilize AI assistants without having to worry about how their conversations could be used. "I think it's critically important, given the amount of sensitive information that we are dumping into AI, that there be a private alternative," Yen says.

Proton's New AI Chatbot Lumo Ensures Privacy But Scrapes Data

MediaNama's Take: While Proton's new AI assistant, Lumo, contains a number of commendable features meant to protect user privacy, AI development itself carries inherent privacy risks. Training an AI model requires datasets scraped from across the internet, which can contain personal data of other people themselves. While Lumo is good for protecting its users' privacy, it requires the infringement of others. What's The News: Encrypted email service Proton Mail recently announced the launch of a privacy-focused AI Assistant called Lumo that does not store or share user data or use it to train AI models. Proton positioned Lumo as an answer to conventional AI chatbots from Big Tech firms, which often use a customer's chat history to train AI models. In contrast, Lumo contains a host of features centered around privacy and data protection. The app claims to protect all user conversations with end-to-end encryption, meaning that they can only be accessed from the user's device. Not even Proton can read these chats. In addition, Proton keeps no records of the conversations on its servers. As a result, it is impossible for the company to share user conversations with government agencies or even third-party vendors or advertisers. It also does not use data from the interactions users have with the chatbot to train other AI models and open-source language models, working from European data centres protected by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Lumo also offers a Ghost Mode to users, which deletes a conversation as soon as it finishes. The proliferation of AI chatbots and assistants has brought with it accompanying privacy risks. For example, OpenAI, the creator of the popular AI application ChatGPT, does in fact use the conversations people have with ChatGPT to train future AI models. Since many users may end up asking ChatGPT sensitive personal questions like those concerning their physical or mental health or finances, models trained on this data could end up reproducing the same information to other users. Another cause of concern is the growing closeness between OpenAI and other AI companies with the US military complex. The company recently won a $200 million contract from the US Department of Defense to develop generative AI capabilities for "warfighting." Around the same time, top executives from AI firms like OpenAI, MetaAI, and Palantir joined the US Army as reservists to apply AI for military use. In such a scenario, the fact that OpenAI stores user conversations, which might include sensitive personal information from users, raises questions about the sort of access the US government has to the data in question. Just last year, the Biden administration signed into law an act that compels US based enterprises to share "communication data" with American agencies, including data that comes from foreign citizens. While Lumo, Proton's newest offering, offers a number of privacy protections that other chatbots don't, more serious questions arise over the privacy risks of AI development in general. Most AI models are trained on publicly available datasets scraped from the internet, which can include personal data as well. India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) doesn't protect publicly available personal information as well, leaving it free to be used for AI training. The basic privacy principle of data minimisation is itself at odds with AI development, which requires enormous quantities of data to create functioning models. The risks of personal information like photos showing up in AI datasets are clearly seen in the case of an American man who used an AI model to generate child porn. The AI model in question was trained on a dataset that contained numerous images of children, as well as pornography and other violent images. Despite its stated commitment to transparency, Proton Mail does not reveal the "open-source foundational models" that it used to build Lumo or the datasets that were part of the model's training or fine-tuning. While it may be beneficial for the privacy of its users, Lumo is ultimately based on a technology that carries inherent privacy risks.

Proton Unveils Lumo: An AI Chatbot That Doesn't Spy on You

Proton Launches Lumo, a Privacy-First AI Chatbot Built to Protect User Data in a Surveillance-Heavy Tech World Swiss tech company Proton has launched Lumo, a new AI chatbot designed to facilitate safe and encrypted conversations without collecting user data. This launch underscores Proton's ambition to challenge the current leaders in the AI industry. Lumo is now available on the web and through Proton's mobile apps. It can assist with common tasks such as writing code, analyzing files, and drafting emails. Unlike like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Lumo does not store chat data, does not track users, and does not use user inputs for training. "Big Tech is employing AI to turbocharge data gathering," shared Proton CEO and founder Andy Yen. "Lumo keeps the user first. It's made to serve, not surveil."