A tech privacy expert has revealed how you can disable the Gmail AI training feature.
This comes as some users voice concerns that they don’t want their data to be used to train AI.
Now, Luiza Jarovsky, who is the co-founder of aitechprivacy.com has shared her insight on how to turn off the smart feature in your Gmail settings.
According to the expert, you’ll first need to go on to Gmail and click on the settings before scrolling to the ‘General’ tab and selecting ‘Smart features’.
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From there, you should have ‘Turn on smart features in Gmail, Chat and Meet’, which you’ll need to make sure is unselected.
If you’re using Google Workspace or other Google products, then under the ‘General’ tab in settings, look out for ‘Google Workspace smart features’.
From there, click on ‘Manage Workspace smart feature settings’ and make sure it’s turned off.
In the post published on X, formerly Twitter, Jarovsky explained: “In the past three years, we have seen tech companies launch an avalanche of new generative AI features.
“Although these features are effectively generative AI and LLM-powered, they don't always bear "AI" in their "official" name.
“Google's smart features are an example. They are AI-powered and will generate synthetic suggestions, but Google strategically (to reduce scrutiny) does not use the term 'AI' explicitly when referring to them, and also avoids it in the Help Center and Privacy Policy when covering these new features.
“Very often, when you interact with these new features (which I have criticized in the past as disempowering... "Help me write" or "Summarize for me"), the data you input will be used to train AI and improve the AI-powered feature.”
So, what is the best way to avoid doing this? According to the expert, that is to make sure the smart features are completely deactivated.
She continued: “What is tricky is that these changes in settings (which are often "ON" by default in some regions) are NOT widely announced by tech companies, and it's extremely UNFAIR to expect people to navigate these complicated settings on a daily basis to look for new traps.
“I wish AI enforcement and regulatory oversight were more prevalent so tech companies would be more protective of their users, AT LEAST for being afraid of getting fined... I only wish…”
Many users took to social media to share their own reactions, with one user writing: “Goddammit i didn't know these were a thing! First i need to worry for gemini to be turned on every now and then and manually deactivate it wit dark magic and s*** and now this?”
And another added: “How does this not violate GDPR??”