Google's October 16 privacy policy lets Search use data from Gmail, Calendar and Photos to personalize ads, if you connected those apps through Personal Intelligence. Google is also testing ads in AI Mode for those users. Who is affected and how to turn it off.
For years Google has said it does not show you ads based on your Gmail. That promise now has an exception. Google’s privacy policy, effective October 16, still says it doesn’t personalize ads from Drive, Gmail or Google Photos content, “unless you choose to make data from these services available to other Google services that support personalized ads.”
The way you make that choice is Personal Intelligence. It’s the opt-in setting that lets AI Mode in Search and Gemini read your Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Photos so answers can use your flights, bookings and photos.
What Google confirmed
All of this comes from Google’s own pages or statements Google gave reporters:
- The policy text. The October 16 privacy policy names Personal Intelligence and adds the exception for connected apps.
- The help page. Google’s Personal Intelligence help page now says ads “will not be based directly on your Gmail inbox or your Google Photos library.” Search may still use summaries and inferences from connected apps to personalize ads. It excludes sensitive categories: race, religion, sexual orientation and health. Advertisers don’t get access to your inbox or photos.
- The ads test. Google told Search Engine Land it “is starting to test ads in AI Mode in Search for users who connect their apps through Personal Intelligence.” In March, Google had said there were no ads for people who connected their apps, according to Search Engine Roundtable.
What nobody has confirmed: which countries the ads test covers, and how large it is. Google calls it a test. Some coverage describes it as a full launch, which goes further than Google’s wording.
Who this touches
It applies only if you turned on Personal Intelligence and connected Gmail, Calendar or Photos. The help page says the feature needs a personal Google Account and users 18 or older. When Google launched it in AI Mode in January, it was limited to Google AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers and excluded Workspace business, enterprise and education accounts, according to Google’s launch post.
If you never connected those apps, nothing changes for you. If your work email runs on a paid Google Workspace account, that inbox isn’t in scope. A personal Gmail you also use for work is.
How to turn it off
Techlicious lays out the steps:
- In your Google Account, open Search Services Personalization. Under Personal Intelligence, open Connected Content Apps and disconnect Google Workspace and Google Photos.
- On the same page, turn off Personalized Recommendations if you want Search to stop personalizing entirely.
- Delete what’s already collected. Disconnecting doesn’t erase your Search Services History. Clear it at activity.google.com.
Turning off personalized ads in My Ad Center is a separate switch, and Techlicious notes it doesn’t stop connected data from being used for AI personalization.
What it means
Decide what the AI answers are worth to you. Personal Intelligence is useful: an AI that knows your flight and hotel can plan around them. The price is now clear. The same connection can feed ad targeting through summaries and inferences, and Google’s wording leaves room for that to grow. Email is valuable to advertisers because it shows what you’re about to buy, as Forrester analyst Nikhil Lai told Fast Company in July.
Keep client mail out of a personal account. If you run a small company on a personal Gmail, this is one more reason to move work mail to a paid Workspace domain. Workspace accounts weren’t eligible for this feature at launch.
Check your settings once. It takes two minutes. If you can’t remember whether you connected Gmail to AI Mode, look. The same goes for any AI agent you’ve given access to your accounts. Narrow access is the safer default, the same advice we gave for 1Password’s agent sign-ins. If you pay for Gemini for the newer models, see what each Google AI plan includes.