With Lumo, Proton believes that it can dynam

Proton Lumo-Catbot, which focuses on privacy based on open source models, was released in mid-JulyAnd follow Update in August I had some early problems, I find myself using them more often than ChatGPT or CLADE. In a world that Internet companies have caused many damages to our society, I try to find more ethical tools. But when the competition offers more clear features in exchange for the low user data price, do Proton seriously think it can compete?

If Eamonn Maguire, the head of Proton in machine learning, shares my fears, he does not offer this within an hour or so we talk to zooming. If there is anything, I start knowing the reason for his belief that Lumo has found a valuable position.

The proton started working on Lumo last year after the release writer. The email writing tool was the first invasion of the company in artificial intelligence. According to Maguire, the reception ceremony to SCRIBE “Better than (the proton) believed it will be.” Soon after, people were asking the company about the reason not to include the tool in Unlimited subscription. Internally, the writer also changed how Proton thought of artificial intelligence. Proton released her postal in 2014, approximately 10 years after the appearance of Gmail in 2004. Proton Drive arrived at the same time, in 2020 or eight years after Google Drive. The company felt that it could not be delayed from chatting as well.

“We knew that we needed to move faster in this matter because it would be a big special problem in the future,” Maguire said, referring to the arc of liquefaction from previous platforms such as Gmail. After the email market turn, Google turned into ads and sale user data to finance Gmail. It is a familiar scenario, and one argues Maguire that we see already playing again with AI Chatbots, with Elon Musk It says recently Advertiser that Xai will display responses sponsored by the normal content of GROK. In other words, Chatbots has already begun artificial intelligence.

The increasing power of open source models is one of the reasons why Maguire believes that the proton can compete against the likes of Openai and Google. Open systems, especially those that come out of China, may fall behind the ownership models in the user’s adoption, but began to match them in testing standards. For example, Zhipu Ai’s GLM-4.5 Currently sitting 10 in general LMARNA. At the same time, “all the upper models are starting to gather together in the standards now,” says Maguire. Even calculating some safety problems with Chinese models “in general, open systems compete, not just Tailgating (closed models).”

Lumo employs a mixture of smaller models open source that requires fewer resources to operate-specifically NEMO, OpenHands 32B, OLMO 2 3 32B and Mistral Small 3. Maguire argues that Proton’s approach allows smart. This is important for a company that has not brought up investment capital financing, and needs to think about building a sustainable business model from the beginning. “Many people think they need the best model for the best responses. But I think it has proven that you can get a very capable responses from the smaller models,” said Maguire.

For consumers, this also means that the proton can offer Lumo for less. Like most chatbots, the basic features are available for free, with the option to remove borders and distinctive symbol through a paid subscription. For Lumo, this costs $ 13 – less than $ 20 per month, most artificial intelligence companies receive their basic paid plans, and much less $ 200 Many of them have begun to provide almost unlimited use of their models.

Maguire suggests thinking about this way: You can drive a Formula One to the grocery store, but that will be exaggerated. If you find LLMS useful in your workflow, there is a good opportunity for a newer model Openai’s O3 Likewise, it is exaggerated for your needs. Unless you are a researcher, you may not need a system that can think for many minutes to address a complex problem.

Likewise, if you are driving a sedan or crossover to complete the tasks, what is better than the neighborhood in which you live digitally from your email, and perhaps store your cloud. Lumo acquires some use of bread in that environment, in the same way that many artificial intelligence companies try their Chatbots layer at the top of desktop operating systems and mobile operating systems.

Another reason for Maguire is that Proton has a snapshot against the applicable Chatbots is, at the end of the day, all of which are tools – some of which are better equipped for certain tasks than others. For example, Claude’s systems in humans are great in coding, but they do not offer images. As platforms, no chaatbots also benefit Network effects In the same way (or sometimes at all, depending on their user data training policies) carried out by social networks.

It should not be a surprise, then at least one of the artificial intelligence giants try to change it. In April, freedom I mentioned that Openai was A copy of ChatGPT It includes a social feed to generate images. Whether users want to remain such something, as social elements that stick to a non -relevant product (often fails (See: Google+). Without social features, consumers may have an easier time to jump between these tools, especially as they are confused with advertisements or engaging in more violations of terrible privacy.

At this stage of our conversation, I am still not convinced that Lumo may publish a place for itself. I think about Mozilla and the last bad news series, from the demobilization of workers that affect this Da`wah Group To close pocket. It can be said that Firefox is a better browser than Chrome, with privacy features like Strong to combat cutting Built directly in the application. However, it contains a small portion of the market share.

There is also an elephant the size of AGI in the room. In the pursuit of models that can match or exceed human intelligence in most tasks, artificial intelligence companies participate in a competition where there can be no one winner except, which burns huge cash amounts to overcome human intelligence through silicon and pay the king’s ransom to employ the higher minds in the field to achieve this. In this context, what is the opportunity that a small player stands like a proton?

Again, the family sedan is standing to overcome the sports car, or perhaps a spacecraft to extend the metaphor. “If your goal is to help people become more productive and learn better, do you need AGI? Maybe not.” “We are not under the illusion that everyone will turn from Chatgpt to Lumo. Our goal is to provide the best environmental system where people can do the largest amount of things in the talisman of stimulating privacy.”

As of 2023Proton Mail 100 million users had. It is far from more than two billion people who use Gmail, but I don’t think anyone can convincingly argue that the proton mail is a failure. The company is still strong, and now it is competing in the space of people like Sam Altman believes you require a trillion dollars in investment. If a proton can prove that artificial intelligence does not need to be “the opposite of privacy”, as Maguer believes, this may be sufficient to call Lomo as a success as well.