Digital privacy stalwart Proton is reportedly set to interview employees across the company about how they use AI in their work, and the answers could help decide who keeps their job. The firm behind Proton Mail and Proton VPN – one of the best VPNs – told staff about the plan in an internal email on Monday, October 26, which was leaked to 404 Media.
The email calls the re-interviews "consequential." What interviewers conclude will be written up and fed into a broader review of the organization, which could change people's roles and responsibilities – or whether they stay at Proton.
The move fits a wider push under CEO Andy Yen, who has been steering Proton toward heavier AI use, including the launch of Lumo, its privacy-focused chatbot. Proton had not responded to 404 Media's request for comment at the time of publication, but has now made a public statement on Reddit.
What Proton says
In the Reddit comment on r/ProtonMail, posted from the Proton_Team account, the company claims it is "not doing layoffs and using AI as an excuse." As a counterpoint to this, it states it has a talent shortage and is hiring across the organization.
"AI is changing the tech industry," the comment continues, "and we, like everyone else, need to evolve our ways of working to remain effective in our industry, and to deliver features faster to users."
The company says it is "assessing how colleagues are adapting to these tools, what support they need, and who can help lead this work."
Finally, Proton states that it is also "assessing whether everyone has the skills they need to take a step forward in a post-AI world," and "offering the support that is necessary, to those who need it, to succeed."
In the Reddit comment, Proton also published the full email, which it says went to some of its staff.
Who gets interviewed – and by whom
The email itself is less reassuring to those impacted: "We are now extending re-interviews more broadly to assess how people are adapting to AI and whether they have the capabilities and approach needed for Proton’s next phase."
Not everyone will be re-interviewed. Interviews will be prioritized according to the organization's assessment needs, the email says, and an invitation – or the lack of one – isn't an outcome in itself. Any decision affecting someone's employment will come separately.
Those who are invited will be interviewed by someone outside their own team and reporting line, chosen from a pool of leaders who "demonstrate strong AI capability."
The interviews will run from November 4 to 11, and staff are told to arrive with concrete examples of their use of AI. The email is blunt about what passes muster here: "Be ready to discuss what you have changed in your work, the results, what you have learned, what has not worked, and what you would do differently. A list of tools alone will not demonstrate this."
What Proton wants from staff
The email also presents the interviews as a route to advancement, saying staff who rethink their work, put AI into practice and help others adapt may be offered greater responsibility. It asks for "curiosity, judgment and urgency."
Yen himself first interviewed more than 40 senior leaders across Engineering and Product, the email says, before the process widened to staff across the company.
AI is not new at Proton. An AI writing assistant arrived in Proton Mail in 2024, Lumo followed in July 2025, and the chatbot got an upgrade in June 2026. Proton says it keeps no server-side logs of Lumo conversations and runs the chatbot on its own infrastructure.
Yen told Wired in an interview published in August that AI is surveillance and that Proton was reluctantly pulled into building AI tools. He added that he would probably prefer a world without AI, but accepts it is here to stay. Clearly, his opinion has not changed on the matter.
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