Swiss tech firm Proton is expanding its range of privacy-focused tools with a new addition called Proton Sheets, a spreadsheet service designed to compete with Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets.
The product joins Proton’s existing lineup of encrypted email, calendar, VPN, password manager, and drive tools, giving users a more complete set of alternatives to Big Tech’s cloud-based office platforms.
Businesses use spreadsheets to manage budgets, analyze data, and track confidential information.
Proton argues that the most popular options leave users exposed, since platforms like Google Sheets and Excel often connect to online systems that monitor user activity or feed data into machine-learning models.
These concerns have grown since Google integrated its Gemini AI assistant into Workspace.
The company maintains that Workspace data is not used to train its AI, but the close link between productivity software and artificial intelligence continues to raise questions about what happens behind the scenes.
Proton Sheets approaches the problem by encrypting every aspect of a file, including its metadata. That means even Proton cannot read the contents of a document stored on its servers.
The company says it has designed the interface to feel familiar to existing spreadsheet users so that switching platforms requires little adjustment.
“With the launch of Proton Sheets, we are not just closing the productivity gap – we are reclaiming data sovereignty for businesses and individuals alike,” said Anant Vijay Singh, Head of Product at Proton Drive.
“The reality today is that most spreadsheet tools come from Big Tech giants whose entire business models are built on exploiting user data. Now, with AI woven deeply into these platforms, the risks have escalated exponentially.”
“Every keystroke, every formula you enter can feed into their AI training pipelines. This is an unacceptable trade-off,” Singh stated. “Users deserve a future free from hidden surveillance and invasive data mining. That’s why we built Proton Sheets: a robust, privacy-first alternative that puts control, security, and trust back where they belong – firmly in users’ hands.”
The new tool extends Proton Drive into a broader workspace that allows teams to collaborate in real time while maintaining end-to-end encryption.
Users can create charts, use standard spreadsheet formulas, and control who has access to view or edit documents. Access can be revoked at any time, and files in CSV or XLS format can be imported directly into the encrypted environment.
