AI Companies Seek Access to More User Data

AI companies are seeking access to data beyond the chat window, including information about the apps and websites a person uses. OpenAI has announced an optional Computer History feature that lets ChatGPT retain a record of a person's activity, while Google will use photos and other material people upload through Search to train its AI systems by default.

The use of this data could lead to more useful and personalized AI, but it also raises concerns about privacy. Chatbots can invite a kind of disclosure that search engines and social networks often do not, as people use them to ask about health, money, work, and relationships. This could create a more intimate record of a person's concerns.

Company policies on data use vary considerably. Apple offers a private option with Apple Intelligence, which handles requests on a user's device and does not make the content accessible to Apple. Meta, on the other hand, stakes a broader claim to user data in its privacy policy, saying it can use interactions with Meta AI to personalize content and ads across its services.

Other AI services fall somewhere between Apple's device-centered approach and Meta's broader data-use policies. Some offer temporary chats that are not used for memory or model training, while others require users to opt out to avoid having their data used for training.