ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini will now remember your past conversations

Artificial intelligence is adding long-term memory to its bag of tricks. Both ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini AI are going to remember your conversations with their generative AI chatbots, though in different ways. In either event, it’s a reminder to users to be careful what you tell these systems.

ChatGPT has historically reset conversations when the interactions are concluded, which assisted with privacy concerns, but negatively impacted any attempts to make the chatbot a digital assistant (having to remind it every time that, for instance, you’re allergic to shellfish when looking for a place to eat could get tiresome). Now, OpenAI says it will allow ChatGPT to remember personal details.

The memory functionality is only a test at the moment. You can ask ChatGPT to remember a specific fact, or the chatbot will take note of details it feels is important. The feature is currently being rolled out to a small portion of the user base. The company says it will share broader roll-out plans in the weeks ahead.

“Remembering things you discuss across all chats saves you from having to repeat information and makes future conversations more helpful,” OpenAI said in a blog post. “ChatGPT’s memories evolve with your interactions and aren’t linked to specific conversations.”

The memory function is optional, and users can turn it off in the settings at any time. You can also instruct ChatGPT to forget things you’ve previously asked it to remember.

Gemini, meanwhile, might not be able to incorporate things you’ve told it previously into future conversations, but in a February 8 update to its privacy policy, Google let users know that conversations between humans and the AI could be kept on file for up to three years, even if you delete that information from the app.

“Conversations that have been reviewed or annotated by human reviewers (and related data like your language, device type, location info, or feedback) are not deleted when you delete your Gemini Apps activity because they are kept separately and are not connected to your Google Account. Instead, they are retained for up to three years,” the policy reads.

Google did note it does not sell user’s personal information and uses automated tools to remove user-identifying information. Still, the company cautions users to be careful with what they say, going so far as to underscore this line in boldface in its policy: “Please don’t enter confidential information in your conversations or any data you wouldn’t want a reviewer to see or Google to use to improve our products, services, and machine-learning technologies.”

ChatGPT’s memory upgrade could be a bit more convenient for individual users, but the real upside will be for enterprise users. OpenAI says the chatbot will remember the voice, tone, and format preferences of users, and automatically apply them to things like blog post drafts—meaning they will ideally need less human editing. Programming language and frameworks will also be remembered, streamlining the coding process.

Just as with chats, memories will not be shared among users.

Artificial intelligence is adding long-term memory to its bag of tricks. Both ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini AI are going to remember your conversations with their generative AI chatbots, though in different ways. In either event, it’s a reminder to users to be careful what you tell these systems.

ChatGPT has historically reset conversations when the interactions are concluded, which assisted with privacy concerns, but negatively impacted any attempts to make the chatbot a digital assistant (having to remind it every time that, for instance, you’re allergic to shellfish when looking for a place to eat could get tiresome). Now, OpenAI says it will allow ChatGPT to remember personal details.

The memory functionality is only a test at the moment. You can ask ChatGPT to remember a specific fact, or the chatbot will take note of details it feels is important. The feature is currently being rolled out to a small portion of the user base. The company says it will share broader roll-out plans in the weeks ahead.

“Remembering things you discuss across all chats saves you from having to repeat information and makes future conversations more helpful,” OpenAI said in a blog post. “ChatGPT’s memories evolve with your interactions and aren’t linked to specific conversations.”

The memory function is optional, and users can turn it off in the settings at any time. You can also instruct ChatGPT to forget things you’ve previously asked it to remember.

Gemini, meanwhile, might not be able to incorporate things you’ve told it previously into future conversations, but in a February 8 update to its privacy policy, Google let users know that conversations between humans and the AI could be kept on file for up to three years, even if you delete that information from the app.

“Conversations that have been reviewed or annotated by human reviewers (and related data like your language, device type, location info, or feedback) are not deleted when you delete your Gemini Apps activity because they are kept separately and are not connected to your Google Account. Instead, they are retained for up to three years,” the policy reads.

Google did note it does not sell user’s personal information and uses automated tools to remove user-identifying information. Still, the company cautions users to be careful with what they say, going so far as to underscore this line in boldface in its policy: “Please don’t enter confidential information in your conversations or any data you wouldn’t want a reviewer to see or Google to use to improve our products, services, and machine-learning technologies.”

ChatGPT’s memory upgrade could be a bit more convenient for individual users, but the real upside will be for enterprise users. OpenAI says the chatbot will remember the voice, tone, and format preferences of users, and automatically apply them to things like blog post drafts—meaning they will ideally need less human editing. Programming language and frameworks will also be remembered, streamlining the coding process.

Just as with chats, memories will not be shared among users.