Proton's New AI Assistant Lumo Offers Encrypted Chat Alternative

[MacRumors]

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."

Lumo by Proton is available to download from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Article Link: Proton's New AI Assistant Lumo Offers Encrypted Chat Alternative

 

[senttoschool]

Can't wait until an average Apple Silicon Mac can run decent models locally. Much more privacy than something hosted in the cloud like Proton.

Hoping M5 generation of chips have Tensor-core acceleration in its GPUs. Macs have unified memory which is great for LLMs but they lack matrix acceleration in GPUs for faster prompt processing.

 

[Lioness~]

Siri and Apples’s AI - no no!!
I wait for Sam and Joni’s AI-device. Until then I will use:
ChatGPT and OpenAI on web.

I think it’s very good to not have it integrated in Apple eco-system - with Tim Cook.

 

[GrumpyOldGuy52]

I’ve played with it. There’s no support for any type of contextual memory function or projects, though you can add “chat knowledge” (including from Proton Drive) on a per-chat basis. I had to tell it I had turned on the web search (even after I had, it kept informing me it couldn’t do a web search until I told it in the chat that it was on). You can’t choose what model you’re relying on, which makes me curious if the model is chosen solely off of your initial prompt or if the chat switches them as the chat goes on (that strikes me as very ineffective and inefficient if that’s the case). It can summarize and create an “artifact” within the chat, but it can’t create standalone artifacts as, say, MD or TXT files.

In all, it’s an okay first pass. It should work well as a general query sort of tool, but don’t look for it to help organize a large project.

 

[uacd]

Proton is sooo overrated. Many sites say the company is “privacy-focused”, yet after signing up there for a throwaway email I realized they blocked me from receiving mails for “security reasons” and that I need to provide my phone number (which I don’t want to). I just wanted to use it to sign up on Facebook. And now they have made their own Bonzi Buddy? Nah I better continue using my iCloud accounts

 

[DestructoTim]

Proton is making mistakes. The mainstream doesn’t know who they are yet, but they keep making changes and additions that core users don’t want. That is how you kill your company.

 

[kcwookie]

Worthless. I asked it to summarize the abstracts of research articles and it promptly chocked. ChatGTP provided me all that info and more. Cheaper is not better.

 

[iPay]

$ Hey Lumo, why did Proton make an AI bot in the first place?
> Because everybody does! We can't miss the boat like some other companies.

$ Sure. But you don't use my data, do you?
> (clicks) I'm focused on giving you the most pleasant and relevant experience.

$ I see. But how can you rewrite my mails if you can't read them?
> Privacy has many meanings. Moreover, any personal data is totally anonymized before feeding the Great Data Forge

 

[cjsuk]

Proton is sooo overrated. Many sites say the company is “privacy-focused”, yet after signing up there for a throwaway email I realized they blocked me from receiving mails for “security reasons” and that I need to provide my phone number (which I don’t want to). I just wanted to use it to sign up on Facebook. And now they have made their own Bonzi Buddy? Nah I better continue using my iCloud accounts

Yes. It's absolutely garbage. Email is not a secure communication medium unless you use PGP and share keys via a side channel. At best the adversaries will go "oh noes" and beat you with a stick until you show them your email.

 

[neotint]

FLOSS, privacy, and general PII protections are great. But Proton's Lumo is still an unethical AI since it's based on copyright theft violations, as are all currently available LLM synthetic text extruders ("Gen AI text automation"). Also bad: I don't see a model card, nor any benchmarks; the basic tech savvy customer information you need to assess any LLM AI tool.

Proton is superior to Gmail and MS for email, but this product release is insulting to its primary customer base, who are more tech savvy and literate. Lumo and every AI LLM tool out so far is still in alpha or beta stage at best, it's R&D and AI con artists really should pay people to test it and iron out the bugs. Stochastic-based tech in LLMs is also the wrong technical architecture for any real human needs.

So much of current AI is all like MySpace, sloppy, not that smart products that will collapse sooner than later.

 

[Bazza1]

Nope.
See also every other company crawling onto this very expensive - and for most average consumers, pointless - bandwagon. This includes other supposed 'privacy-focussed' companies like Duck Duck Go and Mozilla's Firefox.
If you have to create software to justify its use (see Apple), you know you're in trouble. When will shareholders realize their profits are going into the computer equivalent of 3D TV?

 

[tennisproha]

This is great. I only wish Proton and Apple would team up to offer system integration of Proton services.

 

[kcwookie]

This is great. I only wish Proton and Apple would team up to offer system integration of Proton services.

Why, their Proton's system can't even handle simple requests. The data is capped at two years ago. Just let it die.

 

[GrumpyOldGuy52]

Proton is sooo overrated. Many sites say the company is “privacy-focused”, yet after signing up there for a throwaway email I realized they blocked me from receiving mails for “security reasons” and that I need to provide my phone number (which I don’t want to). I just wanted to use it to sign up on Facebook. And now they have made their own Bonzi Buddy? Nah I better continue using my iCloud accounts

If you were using Proton for a throwaway email, then they were right to block you. The service isn't designed for that, and they police accounts that look spammy. If you use them as a legit email service, then you have options to create those throwaway email addresses you want (like the aliases in iCloud).

I, for one, appreciate the work they're doing, but to each their own.

 

[GrumpyOldGuy52]

Worthless. I asked it to summarize the abstracts of research articles and it promptly chocked. ChatGTP provided me all that info and more. Cheaper is not better.

I'm not sure that equates to "worthless" as the use cases are going to vary by each user. As a basic AI reference tool, Lumo's been working fine for me today, but I wouldn't organize my dissertation with it (for example). I'd also argue ChatGPT is the wrong place for research (that would be Claude, specifically Opus 4), but if ChatGPT works for you, enjoy.

 

[MDJCM]

Great news. Well done Proton.

 

[User #07242024]

Hopefully Lumo, Duck AI and the likes of them can keep this up for a long time.

 

[Marco Klobas]

As a Proton user I'd like them to be more focused on improving and fixing their current services rather than adding new ones. It's a common criticism shared among its user base.

That said, I don't bash completely the idea or the company as a whole like others have in the comments above. I respect way more Proton than, say, the so "praised" OpenAI. ChatGPT might be superior – I don't like at all who is leading it, though (Sam Altman). The same goes for Meta, just to name another big protagonist in this crazy AI race.

Heck, I even preferred to try the criticized Grok (or, should I say, its founder), rather than mingling with OpenAI and Meta. Gemini seems to me not bad, too – especially for basic use. Sure, it's Google, blah, blah – still less fishy than Zuckerberg, Altman, et similia, IMO.

We'll see how will it end. My feeling is that a quite big part of the AI phenomenon is an inflated bubble. The very fact that basically all of them started almost immediately asking money (subscriptions – which, relatively speaking, are not even affordable), it suggests me that the expenses are huge and monetization is desperately needed.

For some specific tasks (professionals) it's a useful tool worth the price. I have doubts regular people will embrace it in hordes, especially considering the asked price.

I'm not against the pay-per-service concept. On the contrary. Actually, I'd have requested a contribution to the internet user base years ago even for a "simple" yet fundamental crawling/browsing service like Google (which, coincidentally, is going to be replaced by AI prompts). Unpopular opinion, I know...

Average people are unfortunately too accustomed to the "everything is free on internet" idea. A mistake made in the past years.

Anyway, I might be wrong. Who knows.

 

[iPay]

(...)
We'll see how will it end. My feeling is that a quite big part of the AI phenomenon is an inflated bubble. The very fact that basically all of them started almost immediately asking money (subscriptions – which, relatively speaking, are not even affordable), it suggests me that the expenses are huge and monetization is desperately needed.
(...)

OR they see AI disruption a golden opportunity to make web search a paying service from start. Not sure they already have a money problem, since they're not even in the phase when they fight each other to death by yearly losing $$$ billions like Amazon did to kill its market. This will likely happen in quantum computing age.

 

[acgmph]

Can't wait until an average Apple Silicon Mac can run decent models locally. Much more privacy than something hosted in the cloud like Proton.

Hoping M5 generation of chips have Tensor-core acceleration in its GPUs. Macs have unified memory which is great for LLMs but they lack matrix acceleration in GPUs for faster prompt processing.

I run the Gemma 3 27B model on my Mac Mini and is better in every aspect than Mistral’s Nemo, which might have the same context window (128k), but is only 12B so less than half parameters. More parameters allow for better understanding of language and accuracy of response. Proton went “French” with Mistral, but there are better open source LLMs out there. And OpenAI is getting ready to release their own soon which will probably be the best to use in private environments or locally.

 

[svish]

It is good to see that it can be accessed without needing an account. Will try it out.

 

[Lioness~]

I tested this:
Not logged in on neither this nor ChatGPT.
This model gave me no info, while ChatGPT gave me a long and very detailed answer.
Sorry Luno, but keep evolving - the Cat logo is very nice though. I'll keep using Open AI/ChatGPT.

 

[Quotenfrau]

Great news.

But I can't find the code on GitHub :-(