What actually happens to your chats

So I went and read the privacy policies. Not the "we care about your privacy" marketing pages — the actual legal docs for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Took me a weekend. Here's what's actually in there.

ChatGPT

OpenAI keeps your chats. You hit delete, they keep it another 30 days. They were legally required to hold onto all consumer ChatGPT data until September 2025 because of the NYT lawsuit.

There's an opt-out for training under Settings > Data Controls. But even with it off, your stuff sits on their servers for 30 days. And whatever already went into the model stays there. Can't undo that.

Forbes found that browser extensions were scraping private ChatGPT conversations in December. Great.

Claude

Anthropic was the privacy-friendly one. Then August 2025 happened — they changed their terms. Your conversations now train their models by default. You have to go find the opt-out yourself.

Don't opt out? They keep your data for five years. That salary negotiation you ran through Claude in 2025 is still sitting on a server in 2030.

They're upfront about it, I'll give them that. But being upfront about five years of retention doesn't make it better.

Gemini

Google went further than anyone. August 2025, they turned on "Personal Context" — Gemini learns from your chats, no permission asked. January 2026, "Personal Intelligence" dropped — now it reads your Gmail, Photos, YouTube, Search history.

Gadget Hacks broke down what Google actually collects: chats, voice recordings, files you share, browser content, location. Human reviewers can read your conversations. Default retention: 18 months.

I don't think they're being evil about it. More data makes a better product. But better product and respecting privacy are going in opposite directions.

Why this matters

I still use all three. They're good. But there's stuff I won't type into any of them:

• Am I being underpaid? Here's my salary...
• My landlord is doing something illegal. What are my options?
• Read this contract before I sign it
• I found a lump. What could it be?

The questions where AI helps the most are the ones you'd think twice about typing into something that stores everything.

I built Hush AI because of this. It runs on your phone. No servers, no retention, no opt-out toggles to hunt for. Your conversations stay on your device. Delete them and they're gone for real.

It's not as smart as GPT-5. Won't be. But for the stuff that actually matters to you, maybe good enough and private beats brilliant and watched.

Everything above links to the source. Check them yourself.