Google confirms the media-training use directly, stating in that email to customers: “Like your Search Services History, your saved media is also used to develop and improve Google services and technologies, including AI models and safety measures.”
Its help documentation echoes this, noting that the company “uses your history to provide, develop, and improve its services (such as training generative AI models) and to protect Google, its users, and the public with the help of human reviewers.”
Some of this storage is temporary and tied to making the product work, but per Google’s own language, saved media can also be retained specifically to train its AI.
The good news is you have some control here. You can change your preferences on the Search Services History and Search Services Personalization pages. On the former, you can uncheck the “Save Media” box separately from the “Search Services History” box, or uncheck both. You can also configure how often you want saved data automatically deleted — after 3 months, 18 months, or 36 months.
From there, you can jump to this page to dig into other privacy settings, including Web & App Activity, Timeline, YouTube History, and more.
Beyond saved media, Google also uses your search history, location, and other information from the websites you visit to personalize your experience on Google, including which ads are shown.
Before this update, Google let you configure what historical search data was saved via its “Web & App Activity” settings. That’s now been separated into two settings: the Web & App Activity data and the new Search data setting, which is on by default.
That means if you make a change to the Web & App Activity data retention settings in an effort to opt out of having your data stored by the tech giant, the update will no longer impact your use of Google Search services, as it’s now a separate option.
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