Proton, known for its privacy-centered productivity tools, unveiled its new AI assistant called Lumo on Wednesday. The company highlights that Lumo is designed with user privacy at its core, ensuring conversations remain secure and confidential.
Lumo offers several privacy-focused features including no logging of conversations, end-to-end encryption for chat storage, and a ghost mode that deletes conversations immediately after closing the chat window. Users can access Lumo via web, Android, and iOS apps without needing an account. The chatbot supports file uploads to answer questions and can connect to a Proton Drive account to retrieve files from the cloud. However, while Lumo accesses web data, it may not always provide the most current search results.
Privacy and Transparency at the Forefront
Proton stresses that Lumo is built on open-source language models and commits to using these exclusively for its AI development without leveraging user data for training. The assistant employs zero-access encryption—also used in other Proton products—which ensures that conversation histories are encrypted and only decrypted on the user’s device.
The company emphasizes its European base as an advantage in privacy standards compared to AI services headquartered in the U.S. or China. “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,” Proton stated. Unlike other popular assistants, Lumo does not partner with OpenAI or any major American or Chinese AI companies, and user queries are never shared with third parties.
This launch follows Proton’s earlier introduction of an AI-powered writing assistant integrated into its Mail service last year. That assistant runs locally on users’ devices, reflecting Proton’s ongoing commitment to privacy-friendly AI tools.
What The Author Thinks
The rise of AI assistants often comes with a trade-off between convenience and privacy. Proton’s approach with Lumo represents a crucial shift toward respecting user data and transparency. In a world increasingly wary of data misuse, offering AI services that keep users in control of their information is not just responsible—it’s essential for trust and widespread adoption.
Featured image credit: Priscilla Du Preez via Unsplash
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