Credit: Ryan Whitwam

As Gemini is increasingly woven into the fabric of Google, the way the chatbot accesses and interacts with your data is in a constant state of flux. Today, Google is announcing several big changes to how its AI adapts to you, giving it the ability to remember more details about your chats for improved answers. If that's a concern, Google also has a new temporary chat option that won't affect the way Gemini thinks about you.

You might recall several months back when Google added a "personalization" option to the Gemini model selector. This mode leaned on your Google search history to customize responses, a feature that did not seem to appeal to many Gemini users. Google later dropped that mode, but a new attempt at customization is now rolling out. Gemini is getting an option called Personal Context. When enabled, the chatbot will remember details about your past conversations, adapting its replies without being specifically prompted.

Google claims Personal Context will produce more relevant responses, particularly when you ask the chatbot to make recommendations. This is separate from the saved instructions feature, which allows you to provide explicit instructions for Gemini to be used in crafting outputs. This does have the potential to make Gemini feel more engaging, but that's not always a good thing. AI chatbots that get too friendly with the user can reinforce misconceptions and lead to delusional thinking, something we've seen distressingly often with AI models.

Credit: Google

To start, this feature will be available with the Gemini 2.5 Pro model, but you won't get customization in the Eurpean Union,the  UK, or Switzerland. It's also limited to users over the age of 18. Google says it will eventually release this feature in additional regions and with support for the more efficient Gemini 2.5 Flash model. You can turn Personal Context on and off at will from the main settings page.

More control over your data

As Google moves to implement more customization features in Gemini, you might find yourself second-guessing whether you really want to have certain conversations with the robot. Thankfully, you have options. You can turn off Personal Context, but Temporary Chats go a step further—it's essentially Incognito Mode (but one that actually works) for Gemini.

Temporary Chats also begin rolling out today and will expand to all users over the coming weeks. The feature will be accessible via a dedicated button next to the "New chat" option in the Gemini app. Google says anything you type in a temporary interaction won't be used in Personal Context, even if that setting is enabled. Google labels these as "one-off" chats, but they're not quite that temporary. They'll be retained on Google's servers for 72 hours so you can refer back to them and expand on the conversation if you want.

Credit: Google

Even if you only occasionally use Gemini, you'll want to pay attention to the new personalization push. Google has also confirmed that it's changing how it uses the content you upload to Gemini. Starting September 2, a sample of your chats and data (including file uploads) will be used to train Google's AI. Or in Google's words, your data will "improve Google services for everyone."

If you don't want to give license to dump your data into AI models, you'll need to opt out. In the next few weeks, Google will update the account-level privacy settings, changing "Gemini Apps Activity" to "Keep Activity." You can disable this setting (or use Temporary Chats) to keep your data from being used in Google's model development. Make sure you give this setting a peek before next month or accept that Google will be free and clear to gobble up more of your data.