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What do AI chatbots keep about you?
A plain-language chart of what the main chatbots say about training on your chats, retention and human review, with links to each official page and a five-minute privacy checklist.
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How to read this. Facts only, as each provider states them on its own help pages, for personal (consumer) accounts. Work, school and API accounts follow different terms. Policies change: last checked 2026-11-07; always confirm on the linked page before you rely on it. No product is ranked or called good or bad here.
What each provider says
| Question | Claude (Free, Pro, Max) | ChatGPT (Free, Plus, Pro) | Gemini Apps (personal Google account) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Are my chats used to improve the models? | Your choice in Privacy settings. If you allow it, chats and coding sessions may be used; if not, they are not. | "Improve the model for everyone" is on by default for personal accounts; you can turn it off and keep your chat history. | Controlled by the "Keep Activity" setting. With it off, future chats are not used for product improvement. |
| How long are chats kept? | 30 days of back-end retention if you do not allow training; up to 5 years in de-identified form if you do. | Deleted chats are scheduled for permanent deletion within 30 days, unless already de-identified or a security or legal duty applies. | Default auto-delete is 18 months (you can pick 3 or 36 months or none). With Keep Activity off, chats are still kept 72 hours. |
| Temporary / private chat mode | See the retention article linked below. | Temporary Chats stay out of history and memory; a copy may be kept up to 30 days for safety. | Temporary chats are kept 72 hours with the account. |
| Can humans read my chats? | Chats flagged as breaking the usage policy may be reviewed; flagged content is kept up to 2 years (and safety scores up to 7 years). | See "How OpenAI handles data in consumer services" below. | Google says human reviewers may still be involved even with Keep Activity off; reviewed chats are kept up to 3 years, disconnected from your account, and are not removed when you delete your activity. |
| Where do I change it? | Privacy settings in the app, or claude.ai settings → data privacy controls. | Settings → Data controls. | Gemini Apps Activity. |
Each cell is a plain-language summary of a provider page, not legal text. Where a cell says "see below", this chart does not summarise that point; read the source.
Sources (official pages)
- Claude: How long do you store my data? · Is my data used for model training?
- ChatGPT: Data controls · Temporary chat · Chat and file retention · How OpenAI handles data in consumer services
- Gemini: Gemini Apps Privacy Hub · Manage and delete your activity
A five-minute privacy checklist (any AI chat)
- Find the setting that controls training on your chats and decide on purpose, not by default.
- Use the temporary/private mode for anything sensitive, and read how long a copy is still kept.
- Do not paste secrets: passwords, API keys, ID numbers, other people's private data, client documents you may not share.
- Check which account you are in: personal, work and school accounts have different rules.
- Delete what you no longer need, and know that deleting is not always instant (see the retention rows).
- For truly private material, run a model on your own computer: when nothing is sent to a provider, there is no provider retention to read about. Try Can my PC run this AI model? and the guide to running AI locally.
Local models, for comparison
A model that runs on your own computer, with no cloud feature switched on, keeps your prompts on your machine: there is no account, no provider retention period and no human reviewer. The trade-off is hardware and, usually, a smaller model than the biggest cloud ones.
Found something out of date? The chart is refreshed monthly; the date above shows when it was last checked.