AI just got personal for Australians with Google rolling out its Personal Intelligence feature in the Gemini app. “All” you have to do is allow Gemini access to apps like Search, Gmail, and Google Photos, and you’ll have an AI experience like no other. But that might be a step too far for many people concerned about privacy. The good news is this is an opt-in feature. You have to manually grant access to your other Google data streams. This connection has the benefit of being totally contained within Google, so security is not the issue, but you still have to be comfortable about sharing more personal data with Gemini.
HOW IT WORKS
Personal Intelligence has been rolled out to Google accounts for eligible Google AI Plus, Pro, and Ultra subscribers and free users. Once enabled, it works across Web, Android, and iOS and with all of the models in the Gemini model picker. If you don’t see an invitation to try it on the home screen of Gemini, you can turn it on in Settings by following these instructions:
- Open Gemini and tap Settings
- Tap Personal Intelligence
- Select Connected Apps (Gmail, Photos, etc.)
Google says Personal Intelligence “has two core strengths: reasoning across complex sources and retrieving specific details from, say, an email or photo to answer your question. It often combines these, working across text, photos, and video to provide uniquely tailored answers.”
There’s no doubt the experience is vastly superior to AI assistants without this type of access to your other personal apps. Say you’re planning a trip for a holiday. When you ask Gemini “what are my travel plans for Cairns?”, it goes beyond a simple search. By securely referencing Gmail, it pulls your booking details into a clear timeline. Because it understands your context from Photos, it can retrieve a screenshot you took of a local map or a photo of a gift or souvenir idea you saved weeks ago. It can even suggest a restaurant based on a YouTube video you recently watched about local food trends – saving you from digging through your history and multiple apps while you’re on the go.
PRIVACY
When enabled, Gemini accesses your data to answer your specific requests and to do things for you. Because this data already lives at Google securely, you also won’t have to guess where an answer comes from. Gemini will try to reference or explain the information it used from your connected sources so you can verify it. If it doesn’t, you can ask it for more information. And if a response feels off, just correct it on the spot (“Remember, I prefer window seats”). You can also easily regenerate responses without personalisation for a particular chat, or use temporary chats to have a conversation without personalisation.
When it comes to topics, Gemini aims to avoid making proactive assumptions about sensitive data like your health, though it will discuss this data with you if you ask. Google says Gemini doesn’t train directly on your Gmail inbox or Google Photos library. It trains on limited data, like specific prompts in Gemini and the model’s responses, to improve functionality over time.
So if you take the Cairns trip example, the photos of your gift ideas, your booking confirmations in Gmail, and the videos you watched on YouTube are not directly used to train the model. They are referenced specifically to deliver your reply. Google trains the model using things like your specific prompts and responses, only after taking steps to filter or obfuscate personal data from the conversation you have with Gemini. Basically, the AI systems don’t “learn” your booking details; they train them to understand that when you ask, we can locate them.
At any time, you can adjust settings, disconnect Google apps, or delete your chat history. You can read more about app privacy here.
FEEDBACK WANTED
Although Google has tested this beta version of Personal Intelligence, errors may still be found. You may encounter inaccurate responses or “over-personalisation,” where the model makes connections between unrelated topics. When you see this, Google wants to hear from you by giving the response a “thumbs down.”
Gemini may also struggle with timing or nuance, especially when it comes to relationship changes, like divorces, or your various interests. For example, seeing hundreds of photos of you at a golf course might lead it to assume you love golf. But it misses the nuance: you don’t love golf, but you love your son, and that’s why you’re there. If Gemini gets this wrong, you can just tell it (“I don’t like golf”).
