Proton has apologized to its community after an internal AI manifesto and reports about staff reviews prompted concern over how the company plans to use AI in developing its privacy products. The company said it would not re-interview employees about their AI use and that there would be no AI-related job losses.
In a statement on X, Proton said it had not “lived up to the high standard you ought to hold us to.” It also promised that its “use of AI will never be at the expense of security” and said it does not install tracking software on employees’ laptops to measure how much AI-generated code they produce.
The company pledged to release several internal tools as open source and publish details of its code and security review processes. Proton said these steps would provide transparency into how it works and help demonstrate that it is meeting its commitments.
The response follows the publication of an internal memo titled “AI @ Proton, Engineering Manifesto.” Proton CTO Bart Butler shared the document on the company blog on November 1, two days after the story about the leaked memo appeared. Butler had sent it to staff a month earlier.
The manifesto urges engineers to treat AI models as tools they lead, rather than simply using them to write code faster. Butler wrote that an engineer’s role had changed to helping large language models produce better code, while emphasizing that human experience and judgment remain valuable. He also said that maintainability, documentation, tests and sound engineering practices remain important.
Proton’s statement also said the company would show more advanced versions of its privacy-focused AI assistant, Lumo, which have so far only been available internally. The company did not give a timeframe for making these versions public.
Sources: TechRadar.