You can stop your conversations from being used to train AI by turning off a setting in each chatbot's privacy menu. You can also delete your saved chat history at any time. For a complete removal, each company offers a formal data deletion request process.
AI companies collect your conversations by default. Most people never change those defaults — which means their chats may be used to train future AI models without them realizing it. The good news is that each major service has a way to turn this off, and the process is not complicated. This guide walks you through it service by service.
Understand what you're opting out of
There are two different things you can control, and it helps to know the difference before you start.
The first is chat history: whether your conversations are saved to your account at all. Turning this off means chats disappear after each session — nothing is stored.
The second is AI training: whether your saved conversations are used to improve the model for everyone. Even if you keep history on (so you can refer back to past chats), you can opt out of having those chats fed into future training.
You can do one, both, or neither. This guide covers all of it.
Turn off ChatGPT training
Open ChatGPT and click your profile icon or initials in the bottom-left corner, then choose Settings. Navigate to Data controls. You will see a toggle labeled something like "Improve the model for everyone" — turn that off.
When this toggle is off, OpenAI will not use your future conversations to train its AI models. Conversations from before you made this change may already have been used.
This setting applies to your account on all devices. You do not need to repeat it on your phone separately.
Delete your ChatGPT chat history
In the same Settings → Data controls screen, look for the option to delete your chat history. You can delete all conversations at once or go to the chat list and remove individual ones.
Deleting your history removes those conversations from your account and from OpenAI's training pipeline for future runs. It does not remove patterns already incorporated into models trained before you deleted.
If you want to keep a copy of your chats before deleting, use the Export data option on the same screen — OpenAI will email you a downloadable file.
Opt out in Google Gemini
Go to myaccount.google.com and sign in if needed. Click Data & Privacy in the left menu. Scroll down to find Gemini Apps Activity and click on it.
From there you can turn off Gemini Apps Activity entirely, which stops Gemini from saving your conversations and stops Google from using them to improve its AI products. You can also set an auto-delete schedule — for example, automatically deleting Gemini activity after 3 months.
If you use Google Workspace (a company or school account), your administrator controls some of these settings and they may look different.
Delete your Gemini activity
While still in the Gemini Apps Activity section, click Manage activity. This takes you to a view of your saved Gemini conversations. You can delete individual chats or select a time range and delete everything within it.
For a full clean slate, choose Delete all time from the date filter. Google will remove those conversations from your account and from its training pipeline for future model updates.
Adjust Microsoft Copilot privacy settings
Go to account.microsoft.com and sign in. Navigate to Privacy and then look for Privacy dashboard. From there, find the section for Copilot or AI-related search and conversation history.
Microsoft's settings are organized slightly differently depending on whether you use Copilot through Windows, through Edge, or through Microsoft 365. The Privacy Dashboard is the central place to see and delete activity across all of them. You can delete individual sessions or clear everything at once.
Submit a full data deletion request
The steps above handle what is stored in your active account. If you want to request deletion of all personal data a company holds — including any records kept after account deletion — each company has a formal process.
OpenAI: Visit privacy.openai.com and look for the option to submit a data subject request. You can request a copy of your data, correction, or full deletion.
Google: Go to myaccount.google.com → Data & Privacy → Download or delete your data to export everything or delete your Google account entirely. For partial deletion without closing your account, use the activity controls described in Steps 4 and 5.
Microsoft: Use the Microsoft Privacy Dashboard at account.microsoft.com/privacy to browse and delete data across Microsoft services, or submit a formal request through their privacy contact form.
These requests are processed under privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA. Expect the company to verify your identity and allow 30 to 45 days for the process to complete.
What to Try Next
Now that you have taken care of your own data, it is worth spending a few minutes on the finer details. Our guide to what AI actually knows about you explains the difference between stored facts and educated guesses — and what the AI genuinely cannot see. If you want a deeper look at all the privacy toggles inside ChatGPT specifically, the ChatGPT privacy settings guide covers every option in detail.
