How we use Zendesk to support our customers

We’re committed to providing the highest quality support to all our customers. When you contact Proton, you’ll get a fast, clear answer from someone who understands your problem.

In addition to our headquarters in Switzerland, we have contact centers in Taiwan and North Macedonia. Our global presence allows us to provide a quick and efficient 24/7 support.

In this article, we explain how we use Zendesk to connect with customers who need help, route and prioritize support requests, monitor response quality, and maintain service levels as our user base grows. We also outline alternative contact options for those who prefer them.

• How we use Zendesk’s support platform
• How we use Zendesk’s AI assistant
• Privacy and data protection with Zendesk
• Alternative contact methods

How we use Zendesk’s support platform

When you submit a support request from Proton VPN, Proton.me(新視窗), or any of our apps, we use the Zendesk support platform to direct your query to the Proton advisor best equipped to help with your issue. Once our advisor has seen your request, they’ll reply to you through Zendesk’s communication platform.

To protect your information, all communications made through Zendesk are encrypted in transit via industry-standard TLS (1.2 or higher) and AES-256 at rest.

How we use Zendesk’s AI assistant

In 2026, we launched an AI assistant powered by Zendesk. The AI assistant works with our publicly-available support articles and the process documentation used by our customer support team.

When you start a chat with our AI assistant, it will:

• Search its knowledge base for relevant answers to your question, and respond using natural language.
• Provide sources for any knowledge base articles it used.
• Escalate your request to a human if needed, and ask for the information our Proton advisors need to investigate the issue.

We’ll always let you know when you’re speaking to an AI. We also understand that AI can make mistakes, and might not be able to solve more complex issues. So if you want to continue your conversation with a real expert from our team, you can request a human advisor at any time.

Why we added AI support

Proton will always provide human support. AI is not a replacement for humans. We have not made, nor do we plan on making, any staff reductions as a result of this new tooling. We’re continuing to expand our support team to ensure that a human expert is available to anyone who needs one.

But as our community grows, so does the volume of support requests. And often, the answers to those requests are already available on our Proton VPN and Proton.me(新視窗) support sites.

We added an AI-powered assistant to our support options so we can:

• Keep offering fast, high-quality customer support to both free and paid community members without skyrocketing costs.
• Provide instant answers to common questions. Customers don’t need to manually browse our support library or wait for an advisor to become available.
• Give our customer support advisors more time to work on complex issues.

Privacy and data protection with Zendesk

Proton will never compromise on privacy. Our partnership with Zendesk is governed by strong privacy contracts. Our legal and security teams have thoroughly reviewed all data protection aspects and security safeguards, including how data is handled in practice.

Internal account data

Neither Zendesk or the AI assistant has access to Proton’s internal systems or customer account data. The AI works with our public knowledge base and process documentation only.

Conversation data

The information you share during a conversation through the Zendesk platform is handled only for support purposes under our contractual and technical safeguards. It cannot be shared with outside parties or used to train AI models.

Learn more

• Proton Terms of Service(新視窗)
• Proton Privacy Policy(新視窗)
• Proton VPN Privacy Policy(新視窗)

You can find out more about how Zendesk processes customer data on their website:

• Zendesk’s Commitment to International Standards for Information Security(新視窗)
• Zendesk AI data use policy(新視窗)
• Generative AI at Zendesk(新視窗)

Alternative contact methods

If you don’t want to contact us through Zendesk, you can email us at contact@proton.me and contact@protonvpn.com. Your conversation will stay within Proton Mail and use end-to-end encryption (as long as you message us from a Proton Mail address).

Learn more about Proton Mail’s encryption(新視窗)

Our team will get back to you as soon as they can, but it may take us a bit longer to reply. That’s because direct email requests aren’t connected to our support platform, so our team has to check and triage them manually.