By Will McCurdy
Publication Date: 2025-11-22 15:49:00
Google has hit back at claims circulating on social media that accuse the tech giant of training its Google Gemini AI on users’ emails without their permission.
In a statement shared with The Verge, Google called reports “misleading,” saying that the company has “not changed anyone’s settings. Gmail Smart Features have existed for many years, and we do not use your Gmail content for training our Gemini AI model.”
Some users on X weren’t pleased by the idea of their private email communications being fed into Gemini, with one user calling it “the largest consent manufacturing operation in history.” Some of these claims were even reprinted in a blog from antivirus software firm Malwarebytes. (The security firm has since updated its post, calling the controversy “a perfect storm of misunderstanding.”)
One social media post told readers that all Gmail users had been “automatically opted in to allow Gmail to access all your private messages and attachments…
