from the team:

Hi everyone,

In Proton’s 2024 user survey, it seems like AI usage among the Proton community has now exceeded 50% (it’s at 54% to be exact). It’s 72% if we also count people who are interested in using AI.

Rather than have people use tools like ChatGPT which are horrible for privacy, we’re bridging the gap with Proton Scribe, a privacy-first writing assistant that is built into Proton Mail.

Proton Scribe allows you to generate email drafts based on a prompt and refine with options like shorten, proofread and formalize.

A privacy-first writing assistant

Proton Scribe is a privacy-first take on AI, meaning that it:

  • Can be run locally, so your data never leaves your device.
  • Does not log or save any of the prompts you input.
  • Does not use any of your data for training purposes.
  • Is open source, so anyone can inspect and trust the code.

Basically, it’s the privacy-first AI tool that we wish existed, but doesn’t exist, so we built it ourselves. Scribe is not a partnership with a third-party AI firm, it’s developed, run and operated directly by us, based off of open source technologies.

Available now for Visionary, Lifetime, and Business plans

Proton Scribe is available as a paid add-on for business plans, and teams can try it for free. It’s also included for free to all of our legacy Proton Visionary and Lifetime plan subscribers. Learn more about Proton Scribe on our blog: https://proton.me/blog/proton-scribe-writing-assistant

As always, if you have thoughts and comments, let us know.

Proton Team

  • @[email protected]English
    4•2 months ago

    So that’s fair and I completely understand that. My problem is 1. How training data is obtained 2. How this change in the future and 3. I just started my proton switch about two months ago and all of the google AI integration is what broke the camels back for me.

    I wanted a platform where I didn’t have to constantly check how the AI is getting trained and handles privacy, which is now gone.

    • @LumisalEnglish
      3•2 months ago

      1. Mistral LLM, which I recall is open source

      2. probably not much, since they’re not doing a cloud service. You still have to set this up to work on your local server/computer if you want to use it.

      3. The local AI integration is, so far, the only AI use they seem to be planning on giving. And as they covered, it’s primarily designed for businesses. Other things they are planning on looking into that are not AI related is a web browser, possibly from scratch, but the AI stuff is using an existing model, it’s not from scratch.