Alphabet’s Google updated its privacy policy, effective October 16, to allow personal data from Gmail, Drive and Photos to be used to personalize ads. The change reverses the company’s long-standing policy of not using content from those services for ad targeting.
The policy does not apply by default. It affects users who opt in to connect their data to AI features in Search and Gemini through a setting called Personal Intelligence. The feature lets the AI use personal information to provide more customized results.
Google says advertisers will not have direct access to the contents of emails or photos. Instead, summaries and inferences from the data may inform which ads users see.
The company has reportedly begun testing ads in AI Search for users who have enabled Personal Intelligence.