Google has added a new privacy exception for people who connect Gmail, Google Photos, or Drive to its AI tools. If users let Gemini or AI Mode pull from those apps, information the system derives from them can help shape the ads they see.
Here’s what to know
According to TechSpot, citing Android Authority’s discovery, Google’s updated privacy policy took effect on October 16. The revision adds a condition to the company’s years-old assurance that it wouldn’t use content from those services for personalized advertising.
In the updated policy, Google says, “We don’t show you personalized ads based on your content from Drive, Gmail, or Photos, unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads.”
Another new section says Search may use data a person allows it to access to personalize content, including ads. That language is mainly connected to Personal Intelligence, the opt-in feature that allows Gemini and AI Mode in Search to pull context from linked apps.
Personal Intelligence first arrived for paying subscribers in January and then expanded to all U.S. users in March. So if someone asks AI Mode for help planning a trip, it could look at a hotel confirmation in Gmail and older vacation photos before giving an answer.
More background
Google says ads still are not based directly on someone’s inbox or photo library. But its support page says AI Mode can use “summaries, excerpts, and inferences” from connected apps, and that material can also be used for ad personalization, according to TechSpot.
The company also says advertisers do not get access to Gmail, Photos, or Drive through this arrangement. It adds that sensitive categories such as health, religion, and sexual orientation remain excluded from ad targeting, even as AI-generated context opens a broader path to personalization.
Google has also begun testing ads inside AI Mode for users with Personal Intelligence enabled. That comes after the company said in March that the experience would remain ad-free “for now,” while also indicating that ads for connected users would likely function similarly later.
Because Gmail and Google Photos often store flight reservations, receipts, and years of family pictures, this AI-related policy exception affects some of the most personal information people keep in Google’s ecosystem.
What can be done?
People can choose whether to enable Personal Intelligence or link Gmail, Photos, and Drive to AI Mode. TechSpot reported that the ads-related exception applies when users “choose to make data from these services available” to Google’s other services that support personalized ads.
That means there is a tradeoff when someone asks AI Mode to pull from a hotel email or older photos. By Google’s own support wording, ad targeting may draw on “summaries, excerpts, and inferences” from those connected apps, even if advertisers never see the original files.
Users who want to reduce that exposure can keep those apps disconnected from AI features.
Google stopped scanning free Gmail accounts for ad targeting in 2017 after years of lawsuits and criticism from privacy advocates, but its October 16 policy update creates a new AI-era exception for users who choose to link their most personal apps back into the company’s ad system.
Where can I learn more?
These stories show other ways companies and AI tools are reshaping data privacy.
• In the U.S., officials cleared Google’s $10 million bid for Spirit data despite union warnings.
• Across tech, privacy becomes a luxury when companies charge to stop data sales.
• At Meta, Muse AI tracks relationships, neighborhoods, and preferences to deepen personal profiling.
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