Google Gemini Can Now Reference Past Chats

Google’s Gemini chatbot can now use past chats to give users a more personalized experience. The new feature, which will be on by default, will be rolling out to all users over the coming weeks, but there will be an option to turn it off. A new Temporary Chat feature will also let users have on-off chats with the assistant.

Google detailed how it wanted Gemini to remember users’ personal context at its I/O conference in May. At the moment, the chatbot will only reference past conversations by default when using Google’s 2.5 Pro model in select countries. Google plans to make its 2.5 Flash model act similarly in the coming weeks.

To be clear, Gemini is only catching up with ChatGPT and other chatbots like Microsoft Copilot that can also remember past conversations. “When this setting is on, Gemini remembers key details and preferences you’ve shared, leading to more natural and relevant conversations, as if you’re collaborating with a partner who’s already up to speed,” the company explained today.

Letting Gemini reference past conversations implies having enabled the option to keep your activity with the chatbot. “When this setting is on, a sample of your future uploads will be used to help improve Google services for everyone,” Google emphasized today.

Gemini users can still opt out of having the chatbot keep their activity, but in that case, Google will still save chats for 72 hours. As an alternative, a new Temporary Chat feature allows Gemini users to have conversations with the chatbot that won’t appear in their chat history and won’t be used by Google for AI training. These temporary chats will still be saved for 72 hours for feedback purposes, however.