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Data privacy

Do AI vendors train their models on what you type?

For paid business and developer APIs, the major vendors say by default they do not train on your inputs. The picture flips for some consumer and free tiers, where your data may be used unless you opt out.

Last updated 2026-06-15 · Physea Labs

The honest answer is that it depends on which product you are using, and the vendors split their policies along the line between paid business use and consumer use.

For developer APIs and business products, the default is usually no. OpenAI states that “Data sent to the OpenAI API is not used to train or improve OpenAI models (unless you explicitly opt in to share data with us),” a policy effective March 1, 2023.[1] Anthropic says “By default, we will not use your inputs or outputs from our commercial products to train our models,” which covers the Anthropic API and Claude for Work.[2] There is a catch worth knowing: Anthropic notes that if you report feedback through a thumbs-up or thumbs-down button, “then we may use your chats and coding sessions to train our models.”[2]

Google draws the line by whether you pay. Under the Gemini API terms, for Paid Services “Google doesn’t use your prompts … or responses to improve our products.” For Unpaid Services, “Google uses the content you submit to the Services and any generated responses to … develop Google products and services and machine learning technologies,” and “human reviewers may read, annotate, and process your API input and output.”[3]

Consumer products can be different again. In 2025 Anthropic updated its consumer terms, “now giving users the choice to allow their data to be used to improve Claude.” If you allow it, the company is “extending data retention to five years”; if you decline, you “continue with our existing 30-day data retention period.” Existing users had until October 8, 2025 to make a selection.[4]

Read the tier you are actually on “OpenAI” or “Google” is not one policy. The free chat app, the consumer subscription, and the developer API can each have different defaults. Check the terms for the specific product and plan you use.

References

  1. Data controls in the OpenAI platform — OpenAI
  2. Is my data used for model training? — Anthropic
  3. Gemini API Additional Terms of Service — Google
  4. Updates to Consumer Terms and Privacy Policy — Anthropic

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