Eight Things You Should Never Share With an AI Chatbot

It probably goes without saying at this point, but your conversations with AI chatbots aren't private —everything you type or upload to Gemini, ChatGPT, and other models might be read and used in a variety of ways. If you wouldn't send a document or repeat information to someone you don't know, you shouldn't include it in a chatbot prompt either. Researchers at Stanford reviewed the privacy policies of the six U.S. companies that developed the most popular AI chatbots, including Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT, and found that all of them use chat data by default for training purposes. Some retain said data indefinitely, and most merge it with other information collected from consumers, such as search queries and purchases. In most cases, you can opt out of having your data used to train LLMs, but chats can also be read by human reviewers , and long-term retention policies increase the risk of your stored information being leaked in a breach. If you're going to use an AI chatbot, these are the things you should avoid sharing: Login credentials: Obviously, you should never paste prompts with usernames and passwords into a chatbot, including documents that contain login credentials. AI is also abysmal at generating secure passwords —use the tools in your password manager instead, or better yet, opt for a passkey if available. Financial data: AI chatbots aren't financial experts, and you shouldn't upload documents or use data related to your specific finances in prompts. …