Google's ad privacy promise now has an exception for its AI search

Google has long said the content of Gmail, Drive and Google Photos never helps it personalize ads. Since October 16, 2026, its privacy policy adds a catch. The promise no longer holds if you let other Google services that show ads use that content. Personal Intelligence, an optional AI search tool, does exactly that.

What changed

Personal Intelligence lets Google's AI search read the apps you connect to it. Google's AI Mode is the AI search feature that answers questions in plain language. If you turn the tool on, the old promise about keeping your Workspace content away from ad personalization lapses for that use.

How an ad could follow your inbox

Say you ask AI Mode where to eat near your hotel. It can find your hotel in a booking confirmation in Gmail, check the spot in Maps and suggest places. That is the helpful part. AI Mode can also show sponsored results, and Google says personalized ads follow what the question and answer are about. Your inbox does not go to an advertiser, but it can shape the answer, and the answer shapes the ads.

What Google says

• Connecting your apps is optional.
• Advertisers cannot see the information or content Google accesses in Workspace apps, including your inbox and photos.
• Sensitive topics such as health are off-limits.
• Its data handling with advertising partners has not changed.

Those points protect you from advertisers reading your email. They do not answer the in-between step, where an assistant reads your mail and the ads that appear are chosen from what it finds.

What to do

First, check whether Personal Intelligence is on, since it is easy to enable without meaning to. In your Google Account, go to Data & privacy, then Personalization, then the Search Services recommendations page. Under Connected Content Apps, disconnect Google Workspace and Photos.

There is a limit. Disconnecting stops future access, but it does not necessarily erase what Google already accessed. Search Services History can keep that information even after you delete the email or photo itself.