Would you be willing to give Gemini a peek at your search history?
Recent reports indicate that Google is working on Gemini Personalization — an AI model that would let you share your search history with Gemini to get more personalized results.
Also: Gemini AI is coming to Google Calendar – here’s what it can do and how to try it
You’d be giving up a fair amount of privacy to use this model, but at least from early indications, it would make Gemini the most personal AI chatbot yet. Gemini would know quite a bit about you that you never had to tell it.
How Gemini Personalization works
Google hasn’t officially acknowledged this feature, but Android Authority accessed a version deep in the code of the latest Google app (version 16.8.31), and its article showed several screenshots of the feature in action.
To start, Gemini says that only the model Gemini Personalization will connect to your search history and that chats in this model aren’t used to improve Gemini, aren’t stored outside your chat history, and are deleted from your activity within 60 days.
You’ll need to give Gemini permission to see your search history and turn on Web & App Activity in your Google settings. Once you’ve done that, you can ask Gemini about your past searches or ask a question that Gemini can answer with what it knows about you from those searches.
Also: Goodbye Gemini, hello Pixel Sense? What we know about Google’s AI assistant for Pixel 10
You can potentially ask Gemini base-level questions like “What was that restaurant I was searching for last week?” or “Show me the tourist sites I Googled in NYC,” but you could also ask questions like, “I’m going to NYC. Can you give me restaurant recommendations using my search history?” and get a reply like, “Your search history tells me you like finding locally owned Italian restaurants. There’s a highly rated one…”
A potential question could also go something like, “Give me some recommendations for shoes based on all the ones I’ve searched for the past two months.”
Several months of your search history
It’s not clear how much of your search history Gemini will be able to access. In Android Authority’s APK teardown, Gemini was able to reference the past several months of history, going back as far as January. The several-month limit may be the final form of the feature, or it may just be the limit for the testing version.
Also: 5 easy Gemini settings tweaks to protect your privacy from AI
The fact that Gemini Personalization can access history earlier than the point you turned it on is big, but if it can ultimately access more history, this becomes even more of a game changer. I was able to easily find more than 12 years of my Google Search history on my Google Activity page, so there’s no reason Gemini can’t too.