what sign up
nixm nixm

← learn

What each AI chatbot keeps

September 26, 2026

One table, updated monthly, of what the major AI chat tools retain and for how long. Every row is sourced to the vendor's own documentation or to reporting that names its source; anything a vendor has not published is marked not published rather than guessed. Last verified 17 September 2026. If a row is wrong or out of date, tell us and it gets fixed in the next pass.

How to read this

Four things are worth separating, because tools that look similar differ on all of them. Retention is how long something exists. Deletion is whether removing it from your view removes it from their systems. Training is whether your conversations improve the model. Anonymity is whether the provider knows who you are in the first place.

A tool can score well on one and badly on another. Duck.ai does not know who you are and still holds chats for up to thirty days. Lumo encrypts your history so thoroughly it cannot read it, and requires an account to do so. The right question is not which is "most private" but which property you need for the thing you are about to type.

The table

ChatGPT (OpenAI). Retention: chats persist until deleted, with no automatic expiry. Deletion: OpenAI states removed conversations leave its systems within roughly 30 days, subject to legal hold. Temporary Chats stay out of your history and are removed on a similar window, but exist server-side during it. Uploads: stored separately from the conversation, so deleting a chat does not reliably remove the file. Training: consumer accounts by default, with a data-controls opt-out; Business, Enterprise and Edu workspaces excluded by default. Ads: since February 2026, Free and Go users see ads chosen using the current conversation and, if ads personalisation is on, wider signals from their ChatGPT use; OpenAI states conversations are not shared with advertisers. Legal-hold history: yes — a May 2025 preservation order in the New York Times litigation suspended deletion for roughly five months, and a 20-million-conversation sample was ordered produced. Full breakdown, uploads, the litigation.

Claude (Anthropic). Retention: chats persist in your account until deleted; per Anthropic's privacy centre, deleted chats leave its back-end systems within 30 days. Training: one setting decides it — with model improvement on, Anthropic may train on new or resumed chats and keep them de-identified for up to five years; with it off, chats are not used for training. Incognito chats are never used for training. Commercial tiers are not trained on by default. Reviewers in 2026 describe the consumer setting as arriving switched on, so check it rather than assume. Chats flagged for policy violations can be kept up to two years. Legal-hold history: none reported. Verified against Anthropic's own pages, 25 September 2026 — full breakdown.

Gemini (Google). Retention: with Keep Activity on, which is the default, chats are saved for 18 months unless you choose 3 months, 36 months or never. With Keep Activity off, or in a temporary chat, Google still keeps each chat for 72 hours. Training: saved activity is used to train Google's models, and a subset is read by human reviewers. Reviewed chats are disconnected from your account and kept for up to three years, even after you delete your activity. Google advises against entering anything confidential. Verified against Google's Gemini Apps Privacy Hub, 25 September 2026 — full breakdown.

Copilot (Microsoft). Microsoft split consumer Copilot into two apps on 18 August 2026, with separate privacy pages. New app: chat history is kept until you delete it, and personalised ads can use your chat history and saved memories; its privacy-controls page lists no training switch. Older app: conversations are stored for 18 months by default and, for signed-in users, used for training by default with an opt-out. Work and school accounts fall under Microsoft 365 policy instead. Verified against Microsoft's support pages and Privacy Statement, 25 September 2026 — full breakdown. Copilot's video generation was retired in June 2026 — separate page.

Grok (SpaceXAI, formerly xAI). Retention: chats persist in your account until deleted; deletion removes them within 30 days, unless de-identified or kept for safety or legal reasons. Private Chat stays out of your history and is deleted within 30 days. Training: used unless you turn off Improve the model; feedback may still be used, and some logged-out users outside the EU and UK cannot opt out. Human review: authorised staff may read conversations. Grok inside X follows X's privacy policy instead. Incident history: in August 2025 Forbes reported more than 370,000 shared Grok conversations indexed by Google. Verified against SpaceXAI's Consumer FAQ, 25 September 2026 — full breakdown.

DeepSeek. Storage: per DeepSeek's privacy policy, updated 10 February 2026, personal data is collected, processed and stored in the People's Republic of China. Retention: for as long as you have an account, and otherwise as long as necessary, with no fixed figure. Training: inputs are used to train its models; opting out is a right exercised by emailing privacy@deepseek.com. Sharing: within its corporate group, including for model training, and with authorities in response to government requests. Several governments restrict it on official devices. The open-weight models, run on your own hardware, send nothing to DeepSeek. Verified against DeepSeek's privacy policy, 25 September 2026 — full breakdown.

Duck.ai (DuckDuckGo). Anonymity: no account required; DuckDuckGo proxies requests so model providers do not see your IP. Training: providers have agreed not to train on the conversations, per DuckDuckGo. Retention: DuckDuckGo's policy states chats are removed within 30 days. History: none persists, because there is no account to attach it to. Detail.

Lumo (Proton). Encryption: zero-access encryption on saved conversations, per Proton — meaning Proton cannot read them. Training: Proton states chats are not used to train its models. Logs: none, per Proton. Account: required. This is the strongest architectural guarantee here for anyone who wants a history that still stays sealed.

Leo (Brave). Retention: per Brave, conversations are not logged or retained after a response is returned; any history lives on your device. Anonymity: requests proxied so they are not tied to your IP; no login on the free tier. Account: not required.

nixm. Retention: no transcript is kept; a distilled log of the session and any uploaded images stay with the signal for seven days, then dissolve. Deletion: nothing to delete. Training: nixm does not train on conversations. Account: not required to start. How that works.

The pattern worth noticing

Most of the ten now publish a specific retention figure. The exceptions are DeepSeek, which keeps data as long as necessary with no fixed number, and Lumo, whose guarantee is encryption rather than a clock; Leo states it keeps nothing after a response. Even where a figure exists, it often depends on a setting — training, activity, personalisation — so the honest answer to "how long do they keep it" is still frequently "longer than you think, until you check."

And retention policy is a default, not a guarantee. The 2025 preservation order is the only worked example in this table of what happens when a court disagrees with a company's deletion schedule, and the answer was that the schedule stopped. What that established. The only row that was structurally unaffected was the one with nothing logged — OpenAI's zero-retention API endpoints were excluded from preservation because there was nothing to preserve.

Corrections

Rows are verified monthly and the date at the top moves when they are. Vendor policies change quietly and this table will sometimes be behind. If you find a row that is wrong, or a vendor that has published a figure marked here as not published, say so and it gets corrected in the next pass with the source noted.

The row with nothing in it

Open nixm and seed a signal — no account, no transcript kept.

frequently asked

How long does ChatGPT keep chats?

Indefinitely while they exist in your account. Deletion starts a roughly 30-day removal window on OpenAI's systems, subject to legal hold.

Which AI chatbots do not retain conversations?

Per their own documentation: Brave Leo does not log or retain after a response, and nixm keeps no transcript. Duck.ai holds chats up to 30 days but requires no account.

Which AI chatbot encrypts saved chats?

Proton Lumo, with zero-access encryption — Proton states it cannot read them. A Proton account is required.

Do AI chatbots train on my conversations?

It varies by tier. Consumer ChatGPT trains by default with an opt-out; Business, Enterprise and Edu are excluded. Claude trains on consumer chats only when its model improvement setting is on, and reviewers say that setting often arrives switched on. Proton, Brave and DuckDuckGo state they do not.

Has a court ever overridden an AI retention policy?

Yes. A May 2025 order in the New York Times litigation required OpenAI to preserve conversations it would otherwise have deleted, for roughly five months.

Which AI chatbots publish how long they keep chats?

Most do now: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Grok and Duck.ai all state a figure, and nixm dissolves everything after seven days. DeepSeek keeps data for as long as necessary, with no fixed number.

How often is this updated?

Monthly, with the verification date at the top of the page. Corrections are welcome and noted.

ask anything. nothing is kept.

try it now

ask anything. nothing is kept.

no account, no transcript kept. even the signal dissolves in seven days.

seed a signal → free · opens in this tab

Enter your email and receive a link to sign in. No passwords, just a secure signal to connect.

why connect

  • 20 free credits to start
  • your signals, remembered
  • buy more credits anytime
  • image & video generation features
or