Proton Unveils AI-Powered Email Writing Assistant Focused on Privacy, Operates Directly on Devices

Creators of privacy-focused applications, Proton, have unveiled an innovative AI-enabled assistant designed to streamline the email drafting process through the use of simple commands. This tool allows users to generate drafts, revise, and conduct final proofreads before sending emails.

This initiative is part of Proton’s ongoing effort to emulate and innovate upon Google’s range of products and functionalities within the productivity arena. Following closely behind Google, which recently enhanced Gmail with its Gemini AI for crafting and summarizing emails, Proton introduces its distinctive version.

Given Proton’s reputation as a Swiss firm dedicated to creating private and secure application solutions—spanning email, VPN, password management, calendar functionalities, cloud storage, and document management—their new writing tool targets individuals and organizations keen on maintaining confidentiality, especially against third-party AI service providers.

Dubbed Proton Scribe, this new feature is powered by Mistral 7B, an open-source linguistic model developed by French AI startup Mistral. Proton reveals plans to optimize and refine their choice of model to best suit their users’ needs. They also announce that Proton Scribe will be accessible under the GPL-3.0 open-source license, facilitating easier security and privacy evaluations by independent parties.

Embracing Locality

Unique to Proton Scribe is its capability to operate solely on a local device, ensuring that users’ data remains within their own hardware. Proton assures users that their AI assistant is designed to not learn from user inputs, an assurance particularly relevant for businesses where confidentiality is of utmost importance.

The introduction of Proton Scribe aims to address a legitimate concern: the hesitancy among businesses to adopt generative AI technologies due to privacy worries. This new tool could help mitigate such reservations.

Proton’s CEO, Andy Yen, states, “Regardless of our actions, users will integrate AI tools into their daily routines, often at a significant privacy risk. It’s preferable to integrate inherently private AI solutions directly within Proton Mail, versus having our users turn to external AI solutions with less-than-ideal privacy measures.”

For those less concerned with stringent security measures, Proton Scribe offers a configuration that operates via Proton’s own servers, potentially enhancing performance based on the user’s hardware capabilities.

Users preferring local operation need only download the model once. Subsequently, it functions independently on their device, without any server interactions.

Proton emphasizes their commitment to privacy, ensuring no logs are kept nor data shared with third parties for those opting to use Scribe via Proton’s servers.

“The tool only requires the initial prompt from the user, with no retention of data following the creation of the email draft,” per a statement to TechCrunch from a company representative.

Upon installation, commands like “request samples from a supplier” can be entered, generating a draft email for further refinement by the user.

Given its design to not utilize local data, the responses from Proton Scribe might be generic, a limitation acknowledged by Proton in discussions with TechCrunch. However, Proton points to its inclusion of features like adjusting tone and brevity as means to tailor drafts more finely to the user’s needs.

“We plan to refine Proton Scribe over time, adding capabilities to enhance its functionality, whilst maintaining our privacy-first philosophy,” affirmed Proton.

Currently, Proton Scribe is confined to email functionality, with potential future expansions into Proton’s other offerings, depending on user demand. A recent addition includes a collaborative document editing application.

As of today, Proton’s AI writing tool is available for web and desktop versions of Proton Mail. The company has plans to extend this to mobile platforms and has priced Proton Scribe accessibly, particularly for business accounts, at an additional cost of $2.99 per month.

Proton also extends free access to Proton Scribe for those on exclusive or limited availability plans, including Visionary or Lifetime, with expectations to broaden this feature to more consumer plans in the foreseeable future.