Who can see what I type into an AI chatbot?
What happens to what you paste, and who might read it.
In 2023, engineers at Samsung pasted the company's chip source code into ChatGPT to help fix bugs. Another pasted notes from a meeting.
Weeks later, Samsung banned staff from using ChatGPT and similar tools at work.
Nothing dramatic leaked to the public. But the code was now sitting on another company's servers, under that company's rules.
Your message leaves your computer and goes to the AI company's servers. Then, depending on the company and your settings, it may be:
Retention: how long a company keeps your data before deleting it.
In August 2025, Anthropic asked people on its personal plans (Free, Pro and Max) to choose whether their chats could be used to train future models.
If you say yes, your chats are kept for up to 5 years. If you say no, it's 30 days.
Work accounts (Team, Enterprise and the API) aren't part of this. Other companies have similar switches in their settings.
In May 2025, a judge in the New York Times' copyright case against OpenAI ordered OpenAI to keep all ChatGPT output logs, including chats people had deleted and "temporary" chats.
It covered Free, Plus, Pro and Team users. Enterprise and Education accounts were exempt.
In October 2025 the order was lifted for new chats. Logs already kept under it stayed kept.
| Personal plan | Work plan (Team, Enterprise) | |
|---|---|---|
| Training on your chats | Often a setting you control | Usually off by contract |
| Who sets the rules | You and the company's terms | Your employer's agreement |
| Right place for work data? | Usually not | Yes, if your company approved it |
The same chatbot can follow very different rules depending on which account you're signed into.
In 2024, Simon Willison noticed ChatGPT giving local results without being told where he was. It was using his approximate location from his internet connection.
Apps can also see which device you're on, what time it is, and anything stored in memory (see "Does AI learn from me?").
Check your training setting once. It's usually under Settings, then Privacy or Data controls.
Use your work account for work. If your company has approved an AI tool, put work data there, not in a personal account.
Don't paste secrets. That means passwords, API keys, customer personal data and anything under an NDA. If you wouldn't email it to a stranger, don't paste it.
"Temporary chat" helps, but it isn't a guarantee. The court order above shows why.