Gemini is Google’s AI assistant, available at gemini.google.com, as apps for phones and computers, and inside Chrome, Gmail and Android. It launched as Bard in 2023 and was renamed Gemini in February 2024. This review covers the assistant used with a personal Google Account, scored on the same five criteria as every other assistant in this section.

The result is the usual one for a mainstream product: high marks for what it can do, low marks for how it treats what you type. Chats are stored with your Google Account, and Google uses them, including through human reviewers, to train its models unless you turn that off. Google documents all of this in unusual detail. The documentation does not change the defaults.

Privacy Architecture

You can ask Gemini a question in a browser without signing in, but only for text. Without an account there is no history, file upload, image generation or Gems, and the Android app requires a Google Account. Google says signed-out data is not associated with an account and is handled under its general Privacy Policy. An optional account helps for a quick question; for anything more, Gemini expects you to sign in.

Signed in, Gemini collects what you type and upload, what it generates, interaction logs, crash reports and device identifiers. Location comes from your device, your IP address, or the home and work addresses saved in your Google Account. Google is both the company running the app and the company running the model, so no separate service sits between them to strip the IP address. The Privacy Hub lists the IP address among the data saved with your activity. Google says it coarsens location before saving it, to an area larger than 3 square kilometres with at least 1,000 users.

Chats are stored on Google’s servers and tied to your account. Google documents encryption of data in transit. No consumer page says how stored chats are encrypted, and the question matters less than usual, because Google’s own staff and contracted reviewers read some chats as part of normal operation. This is not zero-access encryption, where the operator could not read your chats even if it wanted to.

The setting that controls almost everything is Keep Activity, which is on by default for users 18 and over. While it is on, Google saves your chats, uploads, screen shares and location, and uses them to train its models. A subset of chats goes to human reviewers, including staff at outside contractors, who rate answers and write better ones. Google says it removes the link to your account before chats reach those contractors, and keeps reviewed chats for up to three years. The audio and video you share with Gemini Live are not used for training by default; transcripts of Live chats are.

Turning Keep Activity off is the opt-out from training, and it costs features. Your chats no longer appear in your history, and most Connected Apps, including Google Workspace, stop working. Even then, Google keeps each chat for 72 hours, uses it to respond and to protect its services with human reviewers, and trains on it if you send feedback: feedback carries the last 24 hours of your chats, which are reviewed and kept for up to three years. One kind of processing has no switch at all: Google says your Gemini settings do not control the use of your chats to create anonymised data for improving its services.

Temporary chats are the per-conversation alternative. They do not appear in your history, are not used for training, and are kept for 72 hours. They need a signed-in personal account and cannot use Gems, Connected Apps or memory.

Gemini also shares data with the rest of Google. Some answers come from Google Search; with Connected Apps it reads your email, files, events and photos in Google Workspace and Google Photos; and data it passes to other Google services is used under Google’s general Privacy Policy, including for product improvement. Deleting your Gemini activity does not delete what those services received. Gemini can also receive your precise location from Google Maps or Android Auto even when the precise-location setting in the Google app is off.

Trust & Transparency

The Gemini Apps Privacy Hub is specific about the parts most readers would want to know. It is dated (the privacy notice on 13 October 2026, the questions section on 23 October 2026), it states that human reviewers read chats, names the retention periods, and spells out what still happens with Keep Activity off. A reader can find the uncomfortable facts without asking support. That counts in Google’s favour.

What it describes is still a long retention record. Activity is auto-deleted after 18 months by default, and you can shorten that to 3 months or extend it to 36 months or indefinitely. Chats picked for review, along with your language, device type, location and feedback, are not deleted when you delete your activity; they stay for up to three years, separated from your account. After you delete something, Google says removal from its systems generally takes about two months, and encrypted backups can hold data for up to six months.

On advertising, the Privacy Hub states that Gemini chats are not being used to show you ads and that Google will “clearly communicate” if that changes. Google’s general Privacy Policy describes using activity across its other services to personalise ads. For Gemini chats, that is excluded today by a policy statement, which can change, not by anything in how the product is built.

Gemini has no confirmed breach of user data. In 2025 the security firm Tenable reported a prompt-injection flaw in Gemini’s browsing tool, which Google fixed. A crafted instruction could make Gemini send a user’s saved information and location to an attacker’s website inside a link. Tenable reported it on 16 April 2025, and Google fixed it on 18 June 2025, with no attacks reported. Flaws of this kind matter more as Gemini gets access to your email, files and photos through Connected Apps.

The apps, servers and models are closed source, so every statement here rests on Google’s documentation. Outside the European Economic Area and Switzerland the provider is Google LLC in the United States; inside them it is Google Ireland Limited, which puts those users under European data-protection law. The US is part of the intelligence-sharing arrangement known as the Fourteen Eyes, and because Google stores chats it can read, a legal demand can reach them.

Work and school accounts and Gemini Enterprise run under different terms. Google states on its subscriptions page that Gemini Enterprise prompts and outputs are not used to train its models. A personal account, free or paid, does not get that default.

Features

Google lists four models. Flash-Lite answers most prompts on the free plan, Flash and Pro are on AI Plus, and AI Pro and Ultra add Gemini 4 Argon, Google’s top model at the time of this review. With automatic selection on, Gemini picks the model for each prompt; on paid plans you can choose one yourself. The lineup changes often, so this list is a snapshot.

Answers can draw on Google Search. You can upload files, images and code, and AI Pro reads up to a million tokens at once, which Google puts at about 1,500 pages of text. Around that core are Deep Research for long sourced reports, image generation and editing, video generation on paid plans, Gemini Live for voice and camera conversations, Canvas for documents and small apps, Gems for saved custom assistants, notebooks, and memory of past chats.

Connected Apps let Gemini look up your emails, files and photos in Google Workspace and Google Photos, and on Android send messages and make calls. The same reach is what makes the privacy settings above matter: the more of your accounts Gemini can open, the more of your data passes through chats that are stored and may be reviewed.

Usability

Gemini works in Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera and Edge without installing anything, and in a browser you can ask a text question without signing in. There are apps for Android and iOS, a Windows app for Windows 10 and later, and a Mac app.

Three things hold the score back. There is no Linux app. The Mac app requires Apple Silicon and macOS 15 or later, so older Intel Macs are left with the browser. And the main privacy setting is tied to features: switching Keep Activity off removes history and most Connected Apps, so the product pushes you to choose between privacy and convenience.

Price & Value

The free plan covers a lot: Flash-Lite with automatic routing to stronger models for some prompts, image generation, Deep Research, Gemini Live, Canvas and Gems, under limits that refresh every 5 hours up to a weekly cap. Google warns that free users may lose access to heavy features such as Deep Research at busy times.

Google AI Plus costs $4.99 a month and doubles the usage limits, adds the Flash model and video generation, and includes 400 GB of Google storage. Google AI Pro costs $19.99 a month for four times the free limits, Gemini 4 Argon and Pro, the coding agent Jules, Gemini inside Gmail and Docs, YouTube Premium Lite and 5 TB of storage. Google AI Ultra starts at $99.99 a month, with a $199.99 tier for twenty times the AI Pro limits. The page shows no introductory discount, and subscriptions can be cancelled at any time without refunds for partial months.

For the money, AI Pro buys the top model, four times the free limits and 5 TB of storage in one subscription. What paying does not change is data handling: every personal plan has the same training default, the same human review and the same retention.

Pros and Cons

Text questions work in a browser without signing in, and Google says signed-out chats are not linked to a Google Account
Temporary chats are kept out of your history, are not used for training and are deleted after 72 hours
The Privacy Hub is dated and states plainly who reads chats, how long reviewed chats are kept and what happens with Keep Activity off
Auto-delete can be shortened from the default 18 months to 3 months
Audio, video and screen shares from Gemini Live are not used for training unless you turn that on
Four model tiers, Google Search grounding, file upload, Deep Research, image and video generation, and Gemini Live
Connected Apps reach your emails, files and photos in Google Workspace and Google Photos
The free plan includes image generation, Deep Research and Gemini Live
AI Pro at $19.99 a month includes 5 TB of Google storage and other Google services
Apps for Android, iOS, Windows and macOS

Keep Activity is on by default, so your chats are used to train Google's models until you turn it off
Turning Keep Activity off also removes chat history and most Connected Apps
Human reviewers, including outside contractors, read a subset of chats, and Google keeps reviewed chats for up to three years even after you delete them
Sending feedback attaches the last 24 hours of chats for review and training, even with Keep Activity off
Google's settings do not control its use of chats to create anonymised data
Chats are stored by Google tied to your account and are not zero-access encrypted
Your IP address and location are collected and saved with your activity
Data Gemini passes to other Google services falls under Google's general Privacy Policy and stays there after you delete your Gemini activity
The promise not to use chats for ads is a policy statement that Google says may change
Closed source throughout, with a prompt-injection flaw reported in 2025 and since fixed
Signed-out use is limited to text, and the Android app requires a Google Account
No Linux app, and the Mac app needs Apple Silicon and macOS 15 or later

Our Rating

Gemini scores high on Features and Usability. It has a wide range of models, answers backed by Google Search, and access to your Gmail, Drive and Photos, and the free plan includes tools that cost money elsewhere. The privacy architecture works the other way. Your chats are stored with your Google Account, used for training and read by reviewers by default, and kept for up to three years if they are picked for review. Turning that off costs you your history and most integrations. Google describes all of this clearly, and that is why Trust & Transparency lands in the middle rather than lower.

The number is a baseline, not a recommendation. Gemini is rated on the same five criteria as the other assistants in this section, and most of the gap to a privacy-first assistant is Privacy Architecture. For everyday questions with nothing sensitive in them, a temporary chat or a signed-out browser session keeps the footprint small. For anything you would not want stored with your Google Account, read by a reviewer or produced for a legal demand, nothing in the consumer product prevents that, and paying for a higher plan does not change it.

Privacy Architecture1.5/10
Signing in is optional only for plain text chats on the web, and nothing else in the design limits what Google receives: the IP address is collected and saved with your activity, chats are stored on Google's servers tied to your account, and training and human review are on by default. Turning training off also turns off chat history. The rest are policy statements, such as anonymised processing and removing the account link before review, which nobody outside Google can check, so they earn no credit here
Trust & Transparency4.5/10
Google's help pages are dated and state the uncomfortable parts plainly: who reads chats, for how long reviewed chats are kept, and what happens with Keep Activity off. Against that, reviewed chats stay for up to three years even after you delete them, the code is closed, and the promise to keep chats out of ads is a policy Google says may change. There is no confirmed breach, but a security firm reported a prompt-injection flaw that Google fixed
Features8.7/10
Four model tiers, answers grounded in Google Search, file upload with a 1M-token context window on AI Pro, Deep Research, image and video generation, voice and camera through Gemini Live, Canvas, Gems, notebooks, and Connected Apps that reach into Gmail, Drive and Photos
Usability8.0/10
Works in a browser without signing in for text, with apps for Android, iOS, Windows and macOS. The score is held back by the lack of a Linux app, a Mac app that needs Apple Silicon and macOS 15, and the fact that switching Keep Activity off disables most Connected Apps
Price & Value7.5/10
The free plan includes image generation, Deep Research and Gemini Live, AI Plus costs $4.99 a month, and AI Pro at $19.99 a month adds the top model and 5 TB of Google storage. No introductory pricing is shown, so the listed price is what you keep paying

Overall5.4/10

Privacy Architecture 30% · Trust & Transparency 20% · Features 20% · Usability 20% · Price & Value 10%

See our rating methodology →