What not to paste into an AI chatbot, and what to do instead
When you type into an AI assistant, your words go to a company's servers. What happens to them afterwards depends on the company, your plan and your settings, and those rules change. The safest habit is simple: leave out what you would not want stored.
Updated . General information for everyday use, not professional advice.
Keep these out of the chat
- Passwords, PINs, recovery phrases and one-time codes
- Full card or bank account numbers
- Government ID numbers, passport details and similar
- Medical records that carry your name or ID numbers
- Confidential work material, unless your employer has approved the tool for it
- Private details about other people, including children, friends and colleagues
- Secret keys, tokens or login links of any kind
The placeholder trick
You almost never need the real detail to get a useful answer. Replace it and carry on:
My landlord, [LANDLORD], has not returned the deposit of [AMOUNT] from my lease ending on [DATE]. Draft a polite but firm message asking for it back within 14 days.
Put the real names and numbers back in yourself once you have the draft.
Check your settings once
Most assistants have a privacy or data-controls page. Look for whether your chats are saved, whether they can be used to improve the service, and whether there is a temporary or private chat mode. The names differ between products and change over time, so read the current wording in your account rather than trusting a summary, including this one.