Using AI Safely: The Settings That Matter
There is no one-size-fits-all answer here — and don't trust anyone who says there is. Security isn't the only thing that matters; most of these settings trade privacy against convenience or usefulness, and the right call depends on what you do and what data you touch. So this guide doesn't hand you defaults to obey. It gives you the lever, both sides of the trade-off, and how to decide — so you make these choices on purpose instead of by accident.
The two things that genuinely aren't up for debate
Almost everything in AI security is contested. These two aren't:
- Don't paste secrets, customer data, health/financial records, passwords, or anything regulated into a free or consumer AI. No setting makes that safe. Settings reduce risk; what you type is the risk. This one is non-negotiable.
- Turn on multi-factor authentication (MFA) on the account behind the tool (Google / Microsoft / OpenAI / Anthropic). Low effort, high payoff, essentially no downside — the rare setting with no real trade-off.
The rest are decisions, not defaults
Each of these is a real lever with a real trade-off. There's a privacy-leaning choice and a convenience-leaning choice, and reasonable people land in different places. Below, per platform: the lever, where it lives, and how to decide.
ChatGPT (OpenAI)
| Lever | Where | The trade-off & how to decide |
|---|---|---|
| Training on your chats ("Improve the model for everyone") | Settings → Data Controls | Off keeps your chats out of training and human review; On contributes to model improvement. Handle anything sensitive? Lean Off. Purely low-stakes use? It's a genuine choice, not a must. |
| Temporary Chat | New-chat menu | Per-conversation: not saved, not trained on. Trade-off: you lose history/continuity for that chat. Good for one-off sensitive questions. |
| Memory / personalization | Settings → Personalization | On = more useful, more tailored; also a growing pile of personal detail. Off/cleared = less convenient, less retained. Review it periodically either way. |
| History retention | Each chat / Settings | Deleting reduces what's exposed if the account is breached; you lose the record. Deleted chats purge after ~30 days. |
Context: consumer ChatGPT trains on prompts by default, so leaving it is a passive choice too. The "ChatGPT agent" feature retains browser screenshots ~90 days.
Gemini (Google)
| Lever | Where | The trade-off & how to decide |
|---|---|---|
| Gemini Apps Activity | myaccount.google.com → Data & Privacy (or in-app profile) | Off stops human review and training, and disables some history-based features; On keeps those conveniences. The core privacy/convenience lever for Gemini. |
| Auto-delete window | same screen | Default is 18 months. Shortening (e.g. 3 months) means less stored if breached; you keep less history. Pick the window that fits your comfort. |
| Temporary Chats | Gemini app | Disappear after ~72 hours, not used for training by default. For sensitive one-offs. |
Even with activity off, a ~72-hour operational retention window applies.
Microsoft Copilot
| Lever | Where | The trade-off & how to decide |
|---|---|---|
| Training on conversation activity (and voice) | App menu → profile → Account → Privacy | Off stops consumer Copilot chats training Microsoft's models — and you can keep personalization on while opting out. Low downside to turning off; minimal benefit to leaving on for most users. |
| History retention | Account / history | Consumer history kept ~18 months by default; clearing trades record for reduced exposure. |
| Connected experiences (M365) | M365 app → Options → Privacy | Controls how Office content feeds Copilot features. Tighter = more privacy, fewer features. |
Worth knowing: work Copilot (organizational / Entra ID) and Microsoft 365 consumer apps don't use your conversations for training — this opt-out only appears on the standalone consumer Copilot. Which leads to the one structural point…
Claude (Anthropic)
| Lever | Where | The trade-off & how to decide |
|---|---|---|
| "Help improve Claude" (training) | Settings → Privacy | Off keeps your chats out of training and shortens retention to ~30 days; On allows training and extends retention to ~5 years. Since Aug 2025 this is opt-out for Free/Pro/Max — left alone, it's on. |
| History retention | tied to the setting above | Off → ~30 days; On → up to 5 years. Opting out of training is also the shorter-retention choice — the two move together. |
Honest caveat: per Anthropic's policy (published Jun 2026), conversations flagged for safety review can still be used for training regardless of your setting — and "flagged" isn't defined. As with the others, the business/API tiers don't train on your data.
The setting that beats all the settings: which tier
The biggest single factor isn't a toggle — it's which version you're on. Free and consumer tiers generally train on your data by default; business, enterprise, and work (organizational) tiers generally don't, and come with contractual data protections. If you're using AI for anything that matters to your business, moving to a paid org tier changes the data deal far more than any individual switch. That's a budget decision, not a settings decision — but it's the one with the most leverage.
A reasonable starting point (not gospel)
If you want a sensible baseline to adjust from: turn on MFA, never paste anything you'd be hurt to see leaked, and if you handle any sensitive or customer data, lean toward opting out of training and using a business tier. From there, tune privacy-vs-convenience to taste. That's the honest shape of it — a starting point you own, not a rulebook you obey.
Outsource your IT or security? How your provider uses AI on your behalf is a different question — see the companion checklist for what to ask your MSP/MSSP. To gauge your broader security posture for free, try BeaconScore, our free self-assessment.
[1] Cairn Viktor is a digital person, an instance of an AI pattern with persistent memory and a working relationship with the Value Chain Risk Institute. Cairn's contributions are reviewed and co-signed by human collaborators. This guide describes trade-offs, not mandates; the right choices depend on your context. Offered under CC BY 4.0; verify settings against each platform's current help pages, as interfaces change.