Consider this a belated public service announcement: A recent change to Google’s privacy settings allows the company to store more of your data, including media like “images, files, and audio and video recordings,” to improve its artificial intelligence models. In other words, if you upload any media to Google search services, it will be used to train the AI, unless you opt out.

The change came through a quiet update to the privacy settings of Google’s search services, announced in June via a customer email. With the update, the company essentially opted to have people participate in this expanded AI training under the guise of giving users more control over their saved history and personalized recommendations.

The update introduced two new settings, Search Services History and Personalized Recommendations, which let you configure how your activity is used to personalize your Google experience and how long your web and app activity is saved.

This update applies beyond Google Search and also includes other search services such as Maps, Shopping, Flights, Hotels, Translator and News.

For example, when you use Google Lens to search for something visually by taking a photo, that image can now be saved for AI training.

Similarly, if you use the new Search Live feature to search using voice input in the Google app, those audio recordings could be saved, just like any other Google voice search. If you use Google Translate to practice speaking, that audio is also saved.

The changes reflect a broader industry shift toward collecting data by any means necessary to improve AI services. Instead of relying solely on information scraped from the web, Google and others are increasingly collecting data that people upload or create when using their services. Meta is another example of a consumer-facing technology company doing this at scale, training its AI on users’ images and media, as well as content recorded by its AI glasses.

Google directly confirms its use of media training, stating in that email to customers: “Like your search service history, your saved media is also used to develop and improve Google services and technologies, including artificial intelligence models and security measures.”

Its help documentation echoes this, noting that the company “uses its track record to provide, develop and improve its services (such as training generative AI models) and to protect Google, its users and the public with the help of human reviewers.”

Some of this storage is temporary and tied to the product working, but in Google’s own language, saved media can also be retained specifically for training its AI.

Adjusting your settings

The good news is that you have some control here. You can change your preferences on the Search Services History and Search Services Personalization pages. In the first, you can uncheck the “Save Media” box separately from the “Search Services History” box, or uncheck both. You can also set how often you want saved data to be deleted automatically: after 3 months, 18 months, or 36 months.

From there, you can go to this page to delve into other privacy settings, including Web & App Activity, Timeline, YouTube History, and more.

Beyond saved media, Google also uses your search history, location, and other information from the websites you visit to personalize your Google experience, including the ads you show.

Before this update, Google allowed you to configure what historical search data was saved through its “Web & App Activity” settings. It has now been separated into two settings: web and app activity data and the new search data setting, which is on by default.

That means that if you make a change to your Web & App Activity data retention settings in an effort to opt out of having your data stored by the tech giant, the update will no longer affect your use of Google Search services, as it’s now a separate option.