Your AI Chatbot Wants to Remember Everything: Here's How to Make It Forget

Remember when you thought your conversations with AI were private? Cute. Last week, security researchers demonstrated that conversations from Anthropic's Claude AI could be found via a Google dork - that's advanced search for those of you not fluent in hacker. Yes, people had already shared these conversations via active links, but I bet they didn't expect anyone with a decent search query to stumble upon their deepest, most awkward AI chats.

Anthropic fixed that little "exploit" quickly, disabling the indexing. But the question lingers: How private are your AI conversations? The answer, it turns out, is largely up to you - assuming you're willing to navigate the labyrinthine privacy settings these companies provide (and sometimes hide).

Let's take a tour through the privacy controls of ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and Claude, because apparently, we all need to become privacy ninjas just to chat with a robot.

First up, ChatGPT. Want to keep your conversations away from OpenAI's prying eyes? You can chat without an account - just log out, and your chats won't be saved. You'll lose some fancy features and hit lower usage limits, but hey, privacy has a price. If you're logged in and want to keep a chat out of your history, use Temporary Chat mode. Click the circular "Turn on Temporary Chat" icon in the upper right, and the prompt field turns black, signaling that your chat will be forgotten (or at least not saved). Still, don't share anything too sensitive - the AI doesn't forget everything, and neither does its training data.

Speaking of training, OpenAI uses your conversations to improve ChatGPT, though they claim it's anonymized. If you'd rather not contribute, click your account name at the bottom of the left pane, go to Settings > Data controls, and turn off "Improve the model for everyone." Easy, right?

And about sharing: ChatGPT lets you share conversations via links on X, LinkedIn, Reddit, or a regular link. But that link stays active as long as the conversation exists. Think twice before sharing something personal, and if you've shared something you regret, delete the conversation by clicking the ellipsis icon next to it and selecting Delete.

Next up, Gemini. Google's chatbot also offers a Temporary chat mode - click "Temporary chat" next to New chat in the left sidebar. Your conversation won't appear in history and won't be used for training or personalization. But here's the catch: temporary chats are kept for 72 hours. So much for "temporary."

By default, Google uses your Gemini conversations to train the AI. To opt out, you have to turn off the "Keep activity" setting on the Gemini Apps Activity page or via Settings > Activity. This stops Google from storing your chats, but it also means your chat history won't show up anywhere. A bit of a trade-off, but if privacy is your priority, it's the only way.

You can also delete individual activities by clicking the X next to them. And if you've shared conversations via public links, you can review and delete them under Settings > "Your public links." Just remember: deleting the link doesn't delete the conversation from your history.

Gemini Live, the voice feature, records your audio and screenshots during live conversations, and some recordings even go to human reviewers (anonymously, they say). To opt out, go to Settings > Activity and uncheck "Improve Google services with your audio and Gemini Live videos & screenshares." Confirm by clicking Turn off.

And then there's Personal Intelligence Memory. Gemini remembers your past chats to personalize responses. If you'd rather it not, go to Settings > Personal Intelligence and turn off the Memory switch.

Now, Copilot. Microsoft's AI can use your text and voice conversations for training. To disable this, go to Settings > Privacy and turn off "Training on conversation activity" and "Training on voice conversations." On mobile, it's a bit more convoluted: tap the three-lined icon, then your account icon, then Account, then Privacy.

Sharing conversations in Copilot is possible via links, but you can revoke those links later. Go to Settings > Privacy > Manage Shared Links, and revoke any you don't want public.

You can delete conversations too, either via the ellipsis icon on the web/desktop or by pressing down on the conversation in mobile apps.

Copilot also remembers details from your conversations and can vacuum up data from Bing, MSN, Edge, and other Microsoft products. To stop that, go to Settings > Memory and turn off "Microsoft usage data" and "Personalization and memory." On mobile, you can also erase what's already stored.

And Copilot can connect to external services like OneDrive, Outlook, Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Calendar. If you're not comfortable with that, go to Settings > Connectors and turn off any connected services.

Finally, Claude. Anthropic's chatbot has an incognito mode - look for the ghost icon at the New Chat screen. Conversations in incognito mode won't be stored.

Sharing in Claude is a bit more nuanced. When you click Share, you can choose "Keep private," "Share with your Team" (team plan only), or "Create public link" (the default). Be careful with that last one - anyone with the link can see your chat. You can review and delete shared links under Settings > Privacy > Manage for Shared chats.

AI training in Claude is off by default, but double-check: Settings > Privacy, and turn off "Help improve our AI models" if it's on.

Claude also has a Memory feature. Disable it via Settings > Memory, turning off "Generate memory from chats." You can pause it or reset it entirely.

So there you have it. With a few clicks, you can make your AI chats slightly less exposed. Just remember: even with all these settings, nothing is truly private on the internet. But hey, at least you tried.