Proton senior management prioritizes AI over security

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From Consumer Rights Wiki

Proton, the Swiss company behind Proton Mail and other privacy-focused products, has publicly positioned itself as a privacy-focused alternative to large technology companies, including publishing a guide advising artists on how to prevent their work from being used to train AI models.[1]

In late 2026, reporting described a substantially different approach inside the company. An investigation by 404 Media published on 29 October 2026, based on conversations with eight current and one former employee, internal documents, Slack chats and meeting audio, described a shift from an internal ban on AI tools to approving AI for most of the code written at the company.[2] Following the investigation, Proton cancelled a planned round of employee interviews about AI use that a leaked internal email had tied to "continued employment".[3]

Proton's services are marketed on encryption and privacy guarantees, and the internal development practices behind those services are relevant to how securely customer data is handled. Employees raised questions about whether AI-generated code was adequately tested for security issues before deployment, and the investigation reported that some employees felt unable to voice such concerns.[3]

According to an internal Proton document seen by 404 Media, the use of AI was initially banned inside the company. AI has since been approved for a wide range of internal uses, including processing financial data, drafting customer-facing responses on Reddit and LinkedIn, and writing code, except where the source code "contains information that would give immediate advantage to a competitor" or relates to "innovation or R&D".[2]

CTO Bart Butler said during a meeting that 90 per cent of code at Proton in October 2026 was written by AI, according to audio obtained by 404 Media.[2] Multiple employees told the outlet that much of the code is written with Anthropic's Claude, and that Yen instructs employees in Slack chats to use Claude as well.[2]

In a Slack exchange in the company's security channel at the end of August 2026, an employee urged Proton to take at least a few days to pentest newly written code before pushing it live. Yen replied "That's bulls*** and loser thinking. Of course it's possible to be fast and secure. Stop thinking always of how to be slower, and focus more on how to be faster." In a follow-up message he wrote "only losers think like that", and his message to the team was to "stop lovingly handcrafting all our code and use AI more".[2]

When another employee in the same discussion asked for specifics on how to ensure AI-generated code was free of security issues, Yen did not respond directly, and wrote that the employee "is saying his usual bs of we can do it but we will be even slower than we are today and I'm saying only losers think like that".[2]

404 Media reported that its investigation documented concerns among employees about security and about being asked to develop security-focused products with AI, and that some felt unable to voice these concerns due to the manner in which they would be addressed in front of colleagues.[3]

In September 2026, Butler published a self-described "AI manifesto" to the company Slack. It told engineers that "Your old job is gone", laid out a future in which Proton fully embraced AI, and stated that failing to do so posed an "existential threat to the success of the mission itself".[2]

Butler wrote that three changes were needed: accepting that an engineer's job is now to help large language models write better code, faster; reaching the point where most code is not reviewed by humans but by AI; and committing "as an organization, to the transformation that the moment requires".[2]

When an employee replied that posting a frightening message on a Friday afternoon "wasn't really necessary", Butler responded "It's supposed to be provocative, because it needs to be. I suggest you read it, think about it over the weekend, and come with your questions to me on Monday rather than on Slack. Thanks!"[2]

On 26 October 2026, 404 Media reported on a leaked internal email in which Proton told staff it would re-interview employees across the company about how they use AI in their jobs. The email stated that "These re-interviews are consequential" and that interviewers' assessments "will inform the broader review of our organization and talent", a review that "may lead to changes in roles, responsibilities, and continued employment".[4]

According to the email, Yen had already "interviewed more than 40 senior leaders across Engineering and Product to begin this process". Not all employees would be re-interviewed, and interviewers would be drawn from outside the employee's team and reporting line, from "a pool of leaders who demonstrate strong AI capability and have aligned on the assessment criteria". The interviews were scheduled to take place between 4 and 11 November 2026, and the email stated that the company needed people who approach the change with "curiosity, judgment, and urgency".[4]

On 30 October 2026, 404 Media reported that Yen had cancelled the re-interviews, citing six current employees and audio from an all-hands meeting of around two hours. The cancellation followed the publication of the outlet's investigation the previous day.[3]

Speaking at the all-hands meeting, Butler said "We fed up, we know we fed up" in response to an employee's comments.[3]

Reactions among the employees the outlet spoke to were split. One said that "Some are happy as it's progress. Others believe that this won't change anything because there isn't any consequence for Andy [Yen]." The same employee said they "would have preferred real accountability from the leadership team", and felt that little could happen due to Yen holding the majority of Proton's shares.[3]

Proton disputed elements of the reporting and responded publicly. In a Reddit comment, Yen stated that due to the progression of AI, Proton's code has been "under more third party scrutiny than ever before", that Proton "still [has] human review, but now augmented by AI", and that Proton "has been using unaligned models with custom skills to do a thorough review of our code". He stated the company's approach "is better, and also faster".[5] As of 30 October 2026, the comment had a score of approximately minus 1,800 votes.[5]

Proton also stated on X that it does not install tracking software on employees' laptops to measure how much AI-generated code they produce, and said that in the interest of transparency it would release and open source several of the internal AI tools it uses.[6]

Following publication of the reports, some customers questioned whether the approach would affect the security of the services they pay for. Cybernews reported on user reactions, including users who described the process as "a huge red flag about their ability/willingness to properly and securely build and maintain the service".[7] Following the remarks and subsequent reporting, Cybernews reported that users had begun cancelling paid subscriptions, with some calling for Yen to resign.[8]