Google pours huge amounts of data into Gemini to train the chatbot. Gemini was trained on public data before it became widely available, but now it is also trained on your data. The more data Google gathers, the better it can make Gemini (in theory), but you don’t need to give it your data to use the service.
It’s straightforward to turn off Gemini AI training on your device. We’ll show you how to stop Gemini from using your data, and we’ll explain why you should do this and clear your conversation history. Disabling AI training on Gemini won’t make the chatbot less effective or limit the features you can access.
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Google saves your data by default for up to three years
It’s hard to keep on top of Gemini’s permissions
If you think Google’s terms of service are reasonable, you may still want to stop Google from storing your conversations in Gemini.
The AI landscape is evolving rapidly, and legislators are slow to keep up with the ethical and legal ramifications of generative AI.
If you’re 18 or older, Gemini automatically saves your activity for 18 months, after which it’s automatically deleted. You can manually extend this up to three years if you desire.
Until legislators catch up with AI development, our data is at the mercy of companies like Google and OpenAI. Should Google wish to update Gemini’s terms of service to allow the company greater and longer access to your data, there’s nothing you can do about your past activity.
Turning off AI training in Gemini and deleting your app activity will clear this data from Google’s services, but there’s a catch. According to Google, ‘Past chats that have already been reviewed or annotated by human reviewers are not deleted when you delete your activity.’
So we recommend turning off AI training now. It won’t impact your Gemini experience and acts as insurance against any changes to Gemini’s terms of service.
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Google employees can read your prompts
Everything you enter in Gemini is readable by a human
Gemini collates and analyzes data from all its users and sources to improve itself, but Google employees also have access to your chats. According to the Gemini Apps Privacy Hub, “human reviewers read, annotate and process your Gemini Apps conversations.”
Google does take steps to protect your privacy as part of this process. Before reviewers can see or annotate your conversations, the conversations are disconnected from your Google account. This means that reviewers can’t identify your Google account from these conversations unless your Google account is mentioned in the conversations.
Nevertheless, everything you enter into Gemini is readable by a human employee. If you forget about or disregard Google’s warning not to include confidential information in your conversations with Gemini, it’s available for a human to read unless you delete your activity before they get to it.
Human reviewers read, annotate and process your Gemini Apps conversations
The most obvious solution is to not enter confidential information or information you wouldn’t want another person to see in Gemini. However, it’s easy to forget this rule, so it’s best to take the extra step towards improving your privacy and disable AI training and stop AI training in Gemini.
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Google can do what it wants with your data
Your conversations aren’t kept within Gemini
Google does not sell your personal data, but the advent of generative AI has muddied the waters over how our data is being used. Google is not scraping your personal information and selling it to other companies, but the information you enter into Gemini isn’t quite as safe from exploitation.
One of the biggest problems with generative AI is that it’s trained on content created by humans, who aren’t compensated when their content is eventually used for AI-created content. You can input images and files into Gemini for analysis. Once your data is in there, Google can use it however it wants.
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In the Gemini Terms of Service, you agree to let Google use everything you enter into Gemini to improve the service, but it doesn’t stop there. The Gemini Apps Privacy Notice states that your conversations in Gemini are used to “provide, improve and develop Google products and services and machine learning technologies.”
Therefore, Google can use everything you enter into Gemini for the ambiguous purpose of improving its products and services. Thanks to Gemini’s capabilities, we’re entering more detailed information into Gemini than we ever did with Google Search. This greatly expands the range of data Google can use to make money. Need Gemini’s advice on a creative project? Disable AI training to stop Google from using your project before you can.
Using your content without compensation isn’t a problem unique to Gemini, but you can enter your own creative content without worrying about Google ripping it off by disabling AI training.
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Gemini has access to other Google products
Don’t think that your information is safe just because you haven’t entered it in Gemini
Source: Google
Google does not directly access your data stored in its products and services (e.g. Gmail) to train Gemini, but this doesn’t mean it’s not secure.
Gemini is integrated into all of Google’s apps. You can use Gemini to summarize a document in Google Drive, create an outline in Google Docs, draft emails in Gmail, and much more.
Every time you use Gemini for one of these tasks, the relevant content is gathered by Gemini, just like your conversations. While you could try to limit the data Gemini gathers by only using it with documents you’re happy for Google to scrape, it’s hard to stop Gemini from limiting itself to one document at a time.
Gemini in Gmail, Docs, and more is limited to premium Google One tiers, so if you aren’t subscribed to this plan, you don’t need to worry about Google using Gemini to scrape your emails and documents. However, if you are subscribed to this plan, we recommend disabling AI training even if you don’t actively use this feature.
How to disable AI training on Gemini
You only need to turn AI training off on one device to disable it across all devices where you’re signed into Gemini. We’ll show you how to disable Gemini on mobile and web.
Stop AI training on mobile
- Open the Gemini app.
- Tap your profile picture in the top-right corner of your screen
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Tap Gemini Apps Activity.
- Tap Turn off next to Gemini Apps Activity.
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Tap Turn off and delete activity from the drop-down menu.
Stop AI training on web
- Head to the Gemini web app
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Click Activity in the bottom-left corner of your screen.
- Click Turn off next to Gemini Apps Activity.
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Click Turn off and delete activity from the drop-down menu.
Use Gemini on your terms
Disabling AI training in Gemini is the biggest step you can make to improve your privacy with the chatbot. Gemini is a powerful tool, and despite the legal and ethical implications of AI, it isn’t going away any time soon. We recommend disabling AI training so you can be more secure in your use of the chatbot without limiting yourself.
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