Computerworld.com reported that “Google this week announced the public rollout of a beta Gemini feature called Personal Intelligence. It gives Gemini access to your Gmail, Google Photos, YouTube, and Google Search data, if you grant permission, which you can do individually (for example, you can grant permission for YouTube access but not Gmail).” The January 16, 2026 article entitled “Google flexes another AI advantage” (https://www.computerworld.com/article/4117545/google-flexes-another-ai-advantage.html) included these comments:
The rollout will take place over the coming weeks, and the feature is exclusive to English-speaking Google AI Pro or AI Ultra plan holders in the U.S.
What that means in practice is that when you ask Gemini for help planning a trip, it knows your flights, which airlines you have status on, what your seating preferences are, and so on, and thus can offer more relevant help.
If you want advice on getting a car repair, it knows the make and model of your car, where you live, and your car’s history of repairs.
And it improves upon the already pretty good search in Google Photos by enabling you to search for pictures with specific objects in them, or even dredge up specific account numbers or amounts in documents you’ve photographed.
Google claims that Personal Intelligence does not use your data to train its models. The company also says it doesn’t make a copy of your existing stored data, but rather leaves it where it is in the current encrypted state. When the system extracts data to answer a query, that data is protected by Application Layer Transport Security.
No surprises here!
First published at https://www.vogelitlaw.com/blog/googles-biggest-ai-advantage-is-that-google-already-has-all-of-your-data