Proton, a privacy-focused productivity app company, released Lumo, a public AI chatbot, last year. On Tuesday, the chatbot got an upgrade.

Lumo 2.0 gives the chatbot a number of new powers, including image recognition and image creation capabilities. Users can now upload photos to Lumo, then use a chatbot to analyze or edit them. Like other LLMs, Lumo can also visualize based on user prompts.

2.0 also expands Lumo’s capabilities for projects – widgets that allow users to upload documents and work through other Proton products such as email, cloud storage, and more. Projects now come with user-controlled persistent memory, a function that allows Lumo to remember user preferences across different chat sessions.

Additionally, the company says that Lumo’s update makes it significantly more powerful than its previous version. The company says the 2.0 version answers most questions 76 percent faster than its previous iteration. The chatbot also comes with a new “Thinking Mode” for more complex problems or questions.

“The Lomo 2.0 has been re-engineered from the ground up and the introduction of Think Mode gives it powerful new capabilities,” said Andy Yen, founder and CEO of Proton. “Lumo 2.0 demonstrates that consumers no longer have to choose between powerful AI capabilities and meaningful privacy protections.”

The public version of Lumo appears to be almost on par with other major chatbots in terms of functionality. It answers questions in a similar format to Gemini and ChatGPT, with almost the same level of detail and context.

Still, Proton sets Lumo apart from other chatbot providers with its privacy protections. It uses what it calls a zero-access encryption architecture, which encrypts user data in transit and at rest, allowing only user access. The company also claims that server-side logging of sessions is not maintained, so no one in Proton can see the content of the conversation. Proton also promises that it will never use customer data for AI training or share it with third parties.

Lumo 2.0 is available immediately. In addition to the free public version, Proton offers paid tiers (Plus and Professional) that give users significantly more access and resources.