Proton launches Lumo 2.0 with focus on privacy and speed

On Tuesday, the productivity software company Proton released Lumo 2.0, an upgrade to its public AI chatbot. The new version introduces image recognition and image generation capabilities, allowing users to upload pictures into Lumo to analyze or edit them, as well as generate images from text prompts. The update also expands Lumo’s capabilities within its Projects widget, which allows users to upload documents and conduct work via Proton’s other products like email and cloud storage. Projects now includes user-controlled persistent memory, which is a function that allows the AI to recall user preferences across various conversational sessions. Additionally, Proton claims that Lumo 2.0 is significantly more powerful, responding to most queries up to 76% faster than the previous version.

While the public version of Lumo appears roughly equivalent to other major chatbots like Gemini and ChatGPT in terms of usefulness, answering questions in a similar format with approximately the same level of detail and context, Proton distinguishes its tool through its underlying security model. The chatbot uses a zero-access encryption architecture, which is a security architecture where data is encrypted at rest and in transit, accessible only to the user. Additionally, Proton does not retain server-side logging of conversational sessions, ensuring that no one at the company can view the contents of user interactions. Proton also promises that it does not use customer data to train AI models, nor does it share this information with third parties.

The update also introduces a “thinking mode,” which is a specific feature designed to handle complex problems or questions. According to Andy Yen, founder and CEO at Proton, the chatbot has been re-engineered from the ground up, with the new thinking mode providing it with powerful capabilities. Yen emphasized that “Lumo 2.0 demonstrates that users no longer need to choose between powerful AI capabilities and meaningful privacy protections.”

Why it matters

Proton is positioning Lumo as a privacy-focused alternative to mainstream AI models by leveraging zero-access encryption and a strict no-data-training policy. This strategy targets users who prioritize data sovereignty without sacrificing access to powerful AI capabilities.