Google is training its AI on your media: How to opt out

The policy shift, communicated to customers via email this June, introduces two new categories: Search Services History and Personalized Recommendations. While framed as a move to provide better user control, these settings effectively broaden the scope of data collection. When you use features like Google Lens to perform a visual search or record voice queries through the Google app, the resulting files are now eligible for use in developing Google’s AI technologies and safety protocols.

This trend aligns with industry-wide efforts by companies like Meta to utilize user-generated content to fill the gaps left by web scraping. Google’s help documentation confirms that saved media is explicitly used to improve services and may be processed by human reviewers. Crucially, this setting is independent of your existing Web & App Activity preferences. Changing your general retention settings no longer shields your search-specific media from being ingested into AI training sets.

To regain control, you must visit the Search Services History page in your Google account. From there, you can specifically uncheck the “Save Media” option or disable the history tracking entirely. You should also verify your Search Services Personalization settings to limit how your location and search habits influence your profile. Given that these features are enabled by default, reviewing these granular controls is the only way to ensure your personal files remain outside of Google's training pipeline.