AI tools have now become a natural part of the daily workflow, from email drafting to coding, from text editing to image analysis. However, this convenience also brings with it an important privacy question: Can the commands you type, the files you upload or your chat contents be used for training artificial intelligence models? Short answer: It depends on the service you use and the privacy settings you have open. Particularly for individual user accounts, some services can benefit from user content to improve model performance.
For this reason, it is necessary to check the relevant data settings before entering private, confidential, corporate or personal data into artificial intelligence tools. Why does artificial intelligence want to use your data? Artificial intelligence companies can benefit from user interactions to make models give more accurate answers, reduce errors, improve security systems and produce more successful results in real use scenarios.
OpenAI states that in individual services, user content can be used for model training in products such as ChatGPT and Codex, but this can be turned off from the settings. These contents may not be limited to just the texts you write. Depending on the settings, prompts, responses, images, files, and other content may also be used to improve model performance. In OpenAI’s statement about consumer services, it is emphasized that this use depends on the user’s settings.
The critical point here is: This feature does not always mean malicious data collection. But when it comes to personal privacy, company data, customer information, financial information, health data or unpublished projects, users need to manage these settings consciously. How to turn off data from going to training in ChatGPT? If you do not want your chats to be used for model development in ChatGPT, you need to turn off the “Improve the model for everyone” setting.
Click on the profile icon, enter the Settings section, open the Data Controls menu and turn off the “Improve the model for everyone” option. After this process, the chats will continue to appear in your history, but they will not be used for model training. A similar method is followed on mobile. After opening the side menu and touching the profile icon, the same setting can be turned off from the Data Controls section.
OpenAI states that this preference is valid account-wide; In other words, it says that when it is turned off on the web, it will also be valid on mobile. Step by step ChatGPT data training turn off. Open ChatGPT and log in to your account. Click on your profile icon or name. Enter the Settings section. Open the Data Controls menu. Turn off the Improve the model for everyone option. If you want, also use Temporary Chat for sensitive topics.
What does Temporary Chat do? If you want a more temporary use of ChatGPT, the Temporary Chat option can also be used. According to OpenAI, conversations made with Temporary Chat do not appear in the chat history, do not create memories, and are not used for training models. For security purposes, a copy of these conversations can be stored for up to 30 days. This feature is especially useful for one-time conversations that you do not want to be saved in history or that should not be affected by the personalization history in your account.
However, using Temporary Chat does not mean that you can comfortably share sensitive data. The safest approach is still to not enter private or confidential information at all. Is just turning off the setting enough? Turning off the model training setting is an important step. However, it may not be enough for privacy alone. Because when working with artificial intelligence tools, the risk is not only model training.
The data you share may be transferred to third-party plug-ins, custom GPT actions, linked applications or external services. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the following points: Do not directly enter content such as private credentials, customer data, access keys, passwords, API keys, internal documents, unpublished reports, contracts, health or financial data into artificial intelligence tools. If necessary, anonymize the data, remove names and identifying information, use sample data.
It is also necessary to know the impact of feedback such as likes/dislikes. OpenAI states that when you give feedback to an answer, even if you have left the training, the conversation associated with this feedback can be used for model development. What is the situation with Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Claude and NotebookLM? Privacy settings vary depending on the artificial intelligence tool you use. For perplexity, the AI data retention option needs to be turned off in the settings.
On the Gemini side, you need to follow the Settings – Activity path and turn off the “Make Google services better with your voice recordings, Gemini Live videos and screen shares” option. In Microsoft Copilot, a more protected experience can be offered when logged in with a corporate or school account. In the source, it is stated that when logged in with a corporate account such as NetID, the data can be switched to a Copilot version that is not used for training, and this can be checked with the shield icon seen next to the name.
Claude does not use the logins for training unless the user explicitly allows it. NotebookLM also does not use user data for model training. Here again, the best approach is to check each service’s own privacy and data control page. Because menu names, default settings and data policies may change over time. In what cases should it be turned off? It makes sense to turn off this setting, especially on a work computer, when working with company documents, handling customer information or using files containing personal data.
This step becomes even more important for students, developers, editors, marketing teams, lawyers and corporate employees. The default situation is different in business-oriented OpenAI products such as ChatGPT Business, Enterprise, Edu and API. OpenAI notes that in these business products, customers’ input and output data is not used for model training by default, but this may change if explicit data sharing is allowed.
Conclusion: first change your sharing habit The most effective method for privacy in AI tools is not just turning off the setting; It also means controlling what you share. A good start is to turn off the “Improve the model for everyone” setting. Using Temporary Chat provides additional protection. However, for truly sensitive data, the safest way is not to enter this information into artificial intelligence tools at all.
In short, when using artificial intelligence tools, it is necessary to keep this rule in mind: Do not write information that you would not be comfortable uploading to the Internet in the artificial intelligence chat without taking the necessary precautions.
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