3 alternatives to ChatGPT for education that respect your privacy, your data and …the environment

Last updated on 11 December 2025

Generative artificial intelligence is no longer a distant promise: it is already in our classrooms and in our students’ school bags. The reflexes are already there and we consult without thinking too much about ChatGPT, Claude and other Gemini.

Giants in this new artificial intelligence sector who do not burden themselves with ethical principles to develop and monetise their tools. Very powerful platforms that can be useful in teaching. But are they unavoidable?

Three AIs for education as an alternative to artificial intelligence giants

The stakes are high. The dominant position of the giants of the sector is worrying. ChatGPT has it alone, captures 80% global AI traffic. Google's Gemini keeps growing.

Are there really alternatives?

Yes, yes. European, Swiss and French initiatives have decided to start building alternatives: sovereign AI that gives the power of AI without ethical compromise.

Here are three of them: Euria, Lumo and Mistral . They share a common philosophy: respect for privacy, refusal to exploit data, awareness of environmental impact. No registration required. No transformations of our students into digital products.

Learn how to transform your pedagogical approach while keeping your hand.

Here are 3 iA without registration, without tracing, without compromise.

Criteria that make the difference

Good AI for education is not the one that promises the most, but the one that secures the most. Here are the concrete criteria that I have selected to choose the three generative AIs that I recommend in this article:

The absence of registration procedures allows immediate access. You enter, you use, it is over.

Non-journalization of conversations means that your exchanges are not archived on a commercial basis.

Refusal to use your data to drive future models protects the ethics of the process.

GDPR/LPD compliance is not a legal detail: it is your legal bulwark.

Transparency on environmental impact – or even the choice of a decarbonised infrastructure.

Finally, a transparent or open source code allows you to actually check what's going on under the hood.

These criteria are not luxuries. These are fundamentals for responsible AI in the school context.

Three European and sovereign tools meet these criteria. They are not perfect – no technology is – but they offer a serious alternative to the giants of the sector. Now is the time to discover them.

Euria d’Infomaniak: A sovereign AI assistant hosted in Switzerland

An alternative "made in Switzerland" that changes the rules of the game

Are you looking for powerful AI without compromise? Infomaniak, the Swiss cloud provider, has just launched Euria, a consumer AI assistant that marks a radical break: it is AI designed first to respect your data and those of your students.

Sovereignty guaranteed, secure data

Euria is entirely hosted in Switzerland in infrastructure powered by renewable energy. No data transfer to U.S. or Chinese servers.

At the heart of Euria’s promise is this: your data is never used to train AI models, build profiles or power third-party systems. You and your students don't become products.

Legal compliance and ease of access

The platform is fully compliant with the GDPR and the Swiss Data Protection Act. Euria can be accessed without creating an account via euria.infomaniak.com or via a handy mobile application. You enter, you use, it is over. No registration, no contact data to be provided.

A revolutionary detail: AI that heats homes

An astonishing small feature on the Euria side: the heat produced by the data center is fully recovered and reinjected into the district heating network of Geneva. At full load, the infrastructure can heat up to 6,000 homes in winter. Every request you send helps to heat homes. It is a matter of concrete ecological responsibility, not of greenwashing. I love it.

In class: concrete abilities

Euria makes it possible toAnalyze images, transcribing audio recordings, translating texts and interpreting PDF, Word and Excel files.

The tool works as an editorial and pedagogical ‘co-pilot’: you can paste instructions, texts or raw ideas into it to generate course fiches, quizzes or evaluation grids, all in quality French and without advertisements.

In a logic of ‘digital hygiene’, Euria encourages a reasoned use of AI, remaining under the control of adults. This is a good example of sovereign AI: not perfect – image generation is not possible – but built on fundamentally ethical principles. It is a tool that a teacher can recommend without fear.

Link to Auria : https://euria.infomaniak.com/

Lumo de Proton: An ultra-secure sovereign AI assistant

An iA assistant who prioritizes security

Developed by the original teamExcellent Proton Mail and Proton VPN, Lumo is a European AI assistant subject to the GDPR. With its encryption zero-access and its code open-source, it ensures that conversations are not logged, shared or used to train patterns. Without advertising, it offers a free version (limited use) and gives top priority to security.

Zero-access: a promise few can keep

Lumo's technical core is based on conversations that are neither stored nor analyzed by Proton with end-to-end encryption. In Ghost Mode (use without registration), conversations are deleted after closing. Encrypted content remains inaccessible to anyone, including Proton. You leave no exploitable trace behind you.

Lumo hosts a selection of the best models of language open source in Europe (Germany and Norway) and its code is fully open: a crucial asset for education.

Legal compliance and immediate accessibility

Lumo is accessible free of charge via the web or a mobile application. You can use it without logging in or creating an account – no registration required. You open the link, you use it, it's over.

Classroom Capabilities

It is a chatbot that you can ask to summarise a long report, help you write an email or even generate computer code. Lumo does not go looking for the internet by default; if you enable this function, the web search uses privacy-friendly engines as well.

The platform is older than Euria just mentioned, but it is also not perfect.

You will not find a image generation for example or real-time web access, but for a very large number of uses Lumo is reliable, accurate and powerful enough.

Link to Lumo: https://lumo.proton.me/u/19/

Le Chat de Mistral: French Open Source AI

Le Chat is a creation of Mistral AI, a French startup founded in 2023 by alumni of Google and Meta. It excels in generative language models open-source, hosted in Europe with assured GDPR compliance, positioning the tool as ethical despite some past controversies.

A fast and powerful consumer assistant

The Cat offers web search with citations, an intuitive creation space to design documents in double window, and an analysis of complex content (summary of large PDF, analysis of graphs). It is powerful and is distinguished by a surprising response speed, using models that are cited as being among the fastest on the market. It also integrates the image generation.

The issue of ethical compliance

The Cat is available for free, with a paid Pro version (€14.99/month).

On the issue of respect for private data, the image of the platform has been tarnished by a major controversy that has not fallen back. Indeed, the paid version ‘Le Chat Pro’ makes it possible to disable AI machine learning thanks to the data provided by users.

This is less clear for the free version. A complaint has even been filed with the CNIL for potential violation of the GDPR concerning this free model. However, Mistral clarified that users of the free form can still object to the collection by sending an email to privacy@mistral.ai. Sounds good …

One iA doubled by the state

A fully European AI, Mistral is supported by governments (France and Germany). It is already extensively tested in the public administration. The platform has also partnered with many universities.

The cat deserves a test to form an opinion. Beyond the polemics, the platform offers a very complete quality service.

Environmentally committed, Mistral publishes its carbon footprint. It uses low-carbon data centers in France, an asset to raise students' awareness of responsible and sober AI, often surpassing US giants in energy efficiency.

Link to The Cat: https://chat.mistral.ai/chat

Take action, test now

The three alternatives you have just discovered share a common conviction: Powerful AI and ethics are not incompatible. They prove that you do not need to sacrifice your teaching principles or privacy to benefit from artificial intelligence.

Now is the time to step aside from the big players in the sector and take action. These tools are accessible, free and ready to use now.

Comparative table: Choosing ethical AI that fits your needs