Proton, a Swiss-based company that develops privacy-focused apps and services, expanded its product portfolio with a new AI assistant, Lumo, that "gives people the power of AI, without demanding any personal data in return."
Lumo works like ChatGPT, Copilot, or any other chatbot. While it does not offer extensive features and capabilities like voice mode or image generation, it makes up for that with improved privacy, encryption, and open-source LLMs. Lumo does not store logs, and users" chats are encrypted and only available on their devices. Proton promises not to share any user data with third parties, advertisers, or governments, nor to use it to train its models.
Besides regular chats, Lumo supports web search. It is turned off by default for improved privacy, but users can toggle on web search mode and ask Lumo to search using "privacy-friendly" search engines. The assistant can also analyze uploaded files and access documents stored in Proton Drive.
Here is what Andy Yen, Proton"s founder and CEO, said about the launch of Lumo:
“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.”
You can use Lumo without a Proton account (Guest mode) with a limited number of questions per week. With a free Proton account, users can ask more questions, access chat history, and upload files. Finally, there is a premium tier, which offers unlimited chats, extended chat history, unlimited chat favorites, and the ability to upload multiple or large files. Lumo Plus costs $12.99 per month or $119.88 per year, and it is included in the Proton Visionary plan.
Lumo is now available on lumo.proton.me. There are also dedicated mobile apps, which you can download from the Apple App Store here and the Google Play Store here.