- Proton will ‘re-interview’ some employees about how they use AI at work between November 4 and 11.
- A leaked email says the results could affect roles, responsibilities, and “continued employment.”
- Proton denies it is using AI as an excuse for layoffs, but the move mirrors a growing trend of AI-first workplace mandates.
Proton, the Swiss company behind Proton Mail and one of the best VPN services around, has told staff it will ‘re-interview’ employees about how they use AI in their jobs.
The plan was revealed in an internal email obtained by 404 Media. It describes the interviews as “consequential,” warning that assessments will feed into a wider review that may lead to “changes in roles, responsibilities, and continued employment.”
From the outside, it’s a somewhat jarring move from a company built on pushing back against Big Tech. But it also puts Proton in step with a growing list of tech firms that now treat AI fluency as a job requirement.
What Proton told its staff
According to the email, CEO Andy Yen began the process by interviewing more than 40 senior leaders across Engineering and Product. Those interviews are now being extended across the company, although not everyone will be called in.
The selected staff will be assessed by someone outside their own team and reporting line, drawn from a pool of leaders who “demonstrate strong AI capability.” The interviews run from November 4 to 11, and employees have been told to bring concrete examples of how AI has changed their work and what results it produced.
Proton has since responded to the leaked email publicly on Reddit, saying it is “not doing layoffs and using AI as an excuse.” The company claims it’s facing a talent shortage, is hiring across the organization, and wants to identify who needs extra support.
Proton’s general relationship with AI is a reluctant one. It does have an AI product, the Lumo chatbot, but Yen told Wired in August that he sees AI as a form of surveillance and that Proton was reluctantly drawn into building it once it was clear AI is here to stay.
Part of a wider AI-first push
Proton is far from the first tech company to tie AI skills to job security. In April 2025, Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke told teams they must show why AI can’t do a job before asking for more headcount. Duolingo followed with its own AI-first memo, saying it would stop using contractors for work AI could handle.
Others have gone further, adding AI into performance reviews. Meta made “AI-driven impact” a core expectation for every employee from 2026, while Google has started factoring AI use into reviews for its software engineers.
These policies have not always gone to plan, though. In September, Meta told staff it would no longer use AI adoption dashboards or token counts to judge performance, after employees began gaming usage leaderboards.
There’s another problem: cost. Many companies have been using AI for a while now, and the bills have been racking up.
AI is a tool like any other, having both effective and ineffective ways to use it. Ineffective use incurs a lot of cost and produces little to no value, giving companies another reason to investigate how it’s being used—to weed out people spending loads but contributing very little.
Either way, for Proton VPN and Proton Mail users, nothing changes for now.
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monicajwrites@gmail.com (Monica J. White)
