Does ChatGPT Train on Your Data? 2026 Privacy Guide

Yes. On ChatGPT Free, Plus and Pro your chats are used to train OpenAI's models unless you turn off "Improve the model for everyone" in Settings, Data Controls. Business, Enterprise and API traffic is not used for training by default. The fastest fix takes under a minute: open Settings, Data Controls and switch the toggle off. Do it again under Personalization, Memory, because saved memories survive even after you delete every chat.

Does ChatGPT Train on Your Data? What ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity Keep, Train On, and How to Turn It Off

Key Takeaways

ChatGPT Free, Plus and Pro train on your chats by default; Business, Enterprise, Edu and the API do not.
Anthropic is the only opt-in default: Claude does not train on consumer chats unless you enable "Help improve Claude", send feedback, or a chat is safety-flagged.
Google and Microsoft also default to training on consumer chats, and both keep human reviewers in the loop with real caveats attached.
Opting out never pulls back data already trained into a model; it only stops future use.
Deletion math differs wildly: 30 days at OpenAI and Anthropic, 18 months of activity at Copilot, up to 3 years for human-reviewed data at Google.
Krater does not train on any user data on any plan; the only remaining exposure is upstream provider API terms, which for the major labs are no-training by default.

What ChatGPT actually does with your chats

Per OpenAI's data controls help page, consumer accounts (Free, Plus, Pro) contribute chats to model training by default. Business, Enterprise, Team and Edu workspaces, and the API, are excluded by default.

What the opt-out does not cover: thumbs-up or thumbs-down feedback you submit is still used even with training off; a custom GPT can train on your chats if its author enabled it; and nothing already absorbed into a model comes back out.

Temporary chats never appear in history and are never used for training, but OpenAI keeps them up to 30 days for safety per its temporary chat page. The same 30-day window applies to chats you delete.

Memory is a separate feature with its own toggle under Personalization, per OpenAI's memory FAQ. Deleting all chats does not delete saved memories; wipe Memory independently.

Human review exists: authorized OpenAI personnel and contractors may review conversations for safety and abuse, and submitted feedback is human-reviewed.

On the business side, OpenAI's terms state API and business data is not used for training by default, with 30-day abuse-monitoring retention and Zero Data Retention available for eligible endpoints.

How to turn it off in 60 seconds

Open ChatGPT, click your profile, go to Settings.
Open Data Controls.
Switch off "Improve the model for everyone".
Go back to Settings, Personalization, and clear or disable Memory.
Use Temporary Chat for anything sensitive going forward.

The same question for Claude, Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity

Tool	Trains on consumer chats by default	How to opt out	Deleted chats kept	Human review	Business/API training
ChatGPT	Yes	Settings, Data Controls toggle	Up to 30 days	Yes, safety and feedback	No by default
Claude	No, opt-in only	Settings, Privacy, "Help improve Claude"	30 days; up to 5 years if you opted in	Safety-flagged chats and feedback	No by default
Gemini	Yes, when Keep Activity is on	myactivity.google.com/product/gemini, turn off Keep Activity	Reviewed data up to 3 years; temp chats 72 hours	Yes, trained reviewers incl. contractors	Workspace covered separately
Copilot	Yes, for signed-in personal accounts	Profile, Privacy, model-training toggles	Activity stored 18 months	Safety/abuse review language only	No for M365 Copilot
Perplexity	Yes, via AI Data Usage	Settings, AI Data Usage off	Files deleted in 7 days; consumer retention not published	Not published	No for Enterprise and API

Claude

Anthropic's training policy is the outlier in your favor: consumer chats are not used for training unless you opt in, send feedback, or the chat is flagged for safety review. The catch is persistence: per Anthropic's retention policy, data that did enter training pipelines can persist up to 5 years de-linked, and policy-violation flags can extend holds to 2 to 7 years. Deleted chats clear the backend in 30 days. Incognito chats never train.

Gemini

Google's Gemini privacy hub ties everything to the Keep Activity setting: on, and your chats help "provide, develop, and improve" Google's services including training generative AI models. Two caveats matter. Even with Keep Activity off, Google still uses chats to respond to you and protect users "with help from human reviewers". And if you submit feedback, the last 24 hours of chats go with it, are human-reviewed, and reviewed data is kept up to 3 years disconnected from your account, even if you delete your activity. Temporary chats are retained 72 hours.

Copilot

Microsoft's Copilot privacy FAQ defaults signed-in personal accounts into training, including voice and uploaded files. The carve-outs are unusually specific: no training for Entra ID work accounts, Copilot inside Microsoft 365 apps on Personal or Family subscriptions, signed-out users, under-18s, opted-out users, and users in Brazil, China (excluding Hong Kong), Israel, Nigeria, South Korea and Vietnam. Conversation activity is stored 18 months by default. Microsoft 365 Copilot conversations "remain read-only for you and are not used to train Copilot's generative AI models."

Perplexity

Perplexity's privacy notice allows use of your data to "improve or create services and products, including our AI models", controlled by the AI Data Usage toggle in settings, which improves the Sonar models. Uploaded files are deleted after 7 days. Enterprise and API data is never used to train or fine-tune Perplexity's models, and its third-party provider agreements prohibit training upstream. Consumer retention periods beyond the file policy and human-review practices are not published.

What people worry about most

Reddit's r/privacy threads on this question are behind a login wall today, so the concerns below come from a DeleteMe writeup quoting the "ChatGPT like a therapist" thread and from search excerpts of related threads, labelled as such rather than verbatim.

"It's a small risk" vs "sold and resold to data brokers": the thread's answer range, per DeleteMe. The vendor facts say the truth is in between: your chats do train models by default at OpenAI, Google and Microsoft, but none of the five vendors sells conversation data to brokers in their published policies.
The toggle is buried: multiple menus deep in every app. OpenAI's is Settings, Data Controls; Gemini's is not in the app at all but at myactivity.google.com; Copilot's sits under profile Privacy.
Memory survives deletion: deleting all ChatGPT chats does not wipe saved memories; a separate Personalization step is required.
Opt-out is not retroactive: data already trained into a model cannot be pulled back; opting out only stops future use.
Human reviewers can read chats: Google publishes this plainly (trained reviewers, retained 3 years de-linked); OpenAI and Anthropic limit it to safety and feedback flows; Perplexity and Copilot do not publish specifics.

Where Krater sits

Krater's own position is one sentence in the privacy policy: "We do not use your data to train AI models. Your conversations, prompts, and generated content are used solely to provide you with our services." That applies on every plan. Conversation history is stored to power the chat-history feature, and you can request deletion at any time via hey@krater.ai; account data may be deleted 30 days after termination unless the law requires retention.

The honest caveat is upstream. Requests reach the labs through their APIs via OpenRouter, and OpenRouter's privacy and logging docs state it does not control how providers handle inputs, including for training; it publishes a per-provider retention and training table so you can check each route. For the majors this is settled: OpenAI, Anthropic and Google all state API inputs are not used for training by default, so the accurate summary is no training by Krater, business-grade API terms upstream, and a published table to check for smaller providers. Temporary chats and human-review specifics are not published in Krater's policy.

Plans: Pro is $20 a month for 1,500 credits across chat, image and video models; Ultra is $49 for 4,000 credits and adds API access. The vendor app is still the better choice when you need its native Memory, Projects, or an Enterprise contract with a DPA.

A five-minute privacy checklist for any AI app

Find the training toggle and switch it off: Data Controls in ChatGPT, Privacy in Claude, Keep Activity for Gemini, Privacy in Copilot, AI Data Usage in Perplexity.
Clear memory or personalization separately; it usually survives chat deletion.
Delete old conversations you no longer need, and know the retention window (30 days, 18 months, 3 years).
Use temporary or incognito chats for anything sensitive.
Never paste credentials, medical details or client data into any consumer AI chat.
Check whether your plan is consumer or business; the training default flips between them.
If privacy is the point, prefer vendors that are opt-in (Claude) or never train (Krater) over ones you have to remember to switch off.

FAQ

Does ChatGPT train on your data?

Yes, on Free, Plus and Pro by default, until you switch off "Improve the model for everyone" in Settings, Data Controls. Business, Enterprise and API traffic is not used for training.

Does ChatGPT save your conversations?

Yes, in your history until you delete them; deleted chats are removed from OpenAI's systems within 30 days. Temporary chats skip history entirely and are kept up to 30 days for safety.

Does ChatGPT learn from users?

By default on consumer plans, yes: your chats can be used to train models. Opting out stops future use but does not undo training already done.

Is ChatGPT safe to use?

For everyday use, yes, once you set Data Controls and clear Memory. For anything you would not want retained 30 days, human-reviewed, or absorbed into a model, use Temporary Chat or a tool that never trains.

Does Claude train on your data?

No, not by default. Anthropic trains on consumer chats only if you opt in via "Help improve Claude", submit feedback, or a chat is safety-flagged. Opted-in data can persist in training pipelines up to 5 years.

Does Gemini train on your data?

Yes, when the Keep Activity setting is on, which is the default. Turn it off at myactivity.google.com/product/gemini; note that submitted feedback still routes the last 24 hours of chats to human review, kept up to 3 years.

Which AI does not train on your data?

By published policy: Claude consumer chats (opt-in model), every vendor's business and API tiers, Perplexity Enterprise, M365 Copilot, and Krater on all plans, with upstream provider API terms applying through OpenRouter.

Bottom line

ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot all train on consumer chats unless you flip a buried toggle, and opting out only protects the future. Claude is the only major that asks first. Whatever you use, spend the five minutes on the checklist: training off, memory wiped, sensitive stuff in temporary chats. Or use a tool where there is nothing to switch off.

Does ChatGPT Train on Your Data? What ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity Keep, Train On, and How to Turn It Off