Google is widening its net.
More data is being pulled in from Search services—maps, shopping flights, news—and that information now feeds directly into its AI training pipelines. It is happening over the next few months as they update their default settings.
Except for Photos. Google explicitly excluded Google Photos from this particular policy change, perhaps a nod to how much people rely on that service for private memories. But everything else? Everything else is fair game.
The new settings mean Google saves not just what you typed in the box but also details from websites you clicked through via their services. Generative AI responses get saved too. Media uploads, like images, audio files, and video recordings, are now included if you upload them through Search tools.
Why?
“Google also uses your history… for training generative AI models… with the help of human reviewers,” the company states plainly in its docs.
It is a shift toward harvesting real human interaction data rather than just scraping the static web. The industry is moving this way. OpenAI has data sharing enabled by default for most consumer accounts though you can flip the switch. Anthropic is slightly more conservative asking users to opt-in specifically for chat and code data unless disabled.
Meta got involved too, last year using public posts from European users to train systems, while also facing backlash over its smart glasses capturing the world around people.
None of this is technically new. Remember reCAPTCHA? You thought you were proving you weren’t a robot, but really you were helping digitize books by reading blurry street names. Humans doing the work computers can’t handle. It’s efficient, sure. Is it fair? That is the question.
How to shut it off
You do not have to be a data point if you don’t want to be.
Head into your Google Search settings. Look for “Search Services History” and “Save Media.” These are separate toggles now. Flip “Search Services History” off if you don’t want the log of what you searched. Flip “Save Media” off to prevent your uploaded audio, video, and files from entering the mix.
If you aren’t ready to delete the whole history, there is a middle ground. Auto-delete settings let you choose how long the data sits around before it vanishes. Three months. Eighteen. Thirty-six. Pick one.
Or leave it on and hope the AI learns something useful from your trip planning queries.
