Imagine your AI assistant as a roommate who either takes careful notes about your life — your weird hobby, your favourite pizza topping, the awkward nickname you hate — or who hands you a paper shredder and promises never to keep a copy. Google’s latest Gemini update gives you both roommates, in one app.

Starting this week, Gemini is getting two opposite-but-related features: a temporary, “incognito”-style chat mode that forgets what you say, and a new “personal context” memory that can learn from past conversations to make future replies feel more helpful and personal. Both are meant to give you more control over how much Gemini keeps — and for how long.

Temporary Chats: short-term, private, and gone soon

If you want a quick one-off conversation without leaving a trace, Gemini now has a Temporary Chat option. When you start one, that conversation won’t appear in your recent chats or be used to personalize your Gemini experience or to train Google’s models. Google says those temporary chats are retained only for up to 72 hours — a short window meant to let you reopen the chat or submit feedback, not to build a permanent profile. In other words: short-term convenience, not long-term memory.

That feels very much like Chrome’s Incognito mode — useful for private queries, awkward brainstorming, or anything you don’t want to become part of your AI dossier. But it’s not instant deletion to the void: the 72-hour holding period is a practical concession so Google can surface follow-ups or process user feedback before the conversation disappears entirely.

Personal context: the memory that’s on by default

On the flip side, Google is also turning up Gemini’s ability to remember. A new Personal context setting lets Gemini reference your past chats to offer advice and suggestions that actually connect the dots — for instance, remembering a hobby you mentioned when you later ask for party ideas. That setting is enabled by default, which means Gemini will begin pulling in past conversation signals unless you switch it off. This feature will first appear for Gemini 2.5 Pro in select countries and then expand to other models and regions over the coming weeks.

If you don’t want a chatbot that learns from your conversations, you’ll want to change that default. In the Gemini app the control lives under Settings → Personal context → Your past chats with Gemini. Toggle it off and Gemini should stop using your past chats to personalize replies. You can also find and delete past chats in Your Gemini Apps Activity if you want a clean slate.

The small-but-important rename: “Gemini Apps Activity” → “Keep Activity”

Google is also renaming one of its toggles. What used to be called “Gemini Apps Activity” will now be labeled “Keep Activity.” The rename is cosmetic — Google says your previous preference for that setting will carry over — but it’s part of a broader attempt to make data controls less cryptic. Still: when settings names change, it’s worth checking them once to make sure the options still match your expectations.

This isn’t a one-off. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude have also added—or expanded—memory-style features that let the assistant reference past conversations (with varying defaults and controls). The AI world is moving toward more persistent, personalized assistants — and with that comes the same trade-off: convenience vs. privacy.

What to do right now

• If you like helpful continuity (fewer repeats, better follow-ups), leave Personal context on. It will make Gemini feel more like a single, coherent assistant.
• If you value privacy, use Temporary Chats for sensitive queries and turn off “Your past chats with Gemini” in Personal context. Remember that Temporary Chats are held for up to 72 hours, so they’re not absolutely instantaneous deletion.
• Check the renamed Keep Activity toggle so you know what data Google is allowed to retain from the app.

The trade-offs, briefly

Personalization is powerful: fewer repeated explanations, more tailored suggestions, less friction. But defaults matter — turning memory on by default nudges users toward convenience and away from privacy by design. Temporary Chats soften that nudge by giving an accessible privacy escape hatch, but the 72-hour retention window and the complexity of settings mean users still need to be proactive.

Google is trying to give users both a smart, memory-enabled assistant and an incognito-style option when you don’t want Gemini to stick around in your history. Whether you’ll appreciate having an AI that remembers your life — or feel creeped out by a digital memory — depends on how much convenience you want from personalization and how much effort you’re willing to spend on the settings. Either way, the control is finally in your hands: flip the switch, or start a Temporary Chat.