AI Exposure · AI chatbot
What ChatGPT actually does with your data
The one your staff are probably already using. What happens to what they type depends entirely on whose account it is.
- Trains on your data
- Depends on the account
- Processed
- Mostly the US
- Can you turn it off
- Not for personal accounts
- Verified
- 2 July 2026, against OpenAI's published documents
What AI is in it?
- The chat itself. Whatever someone types or pastes into the conversation goes to OpenAI's servers to be answered. That includes documents and spreadsheets uploaded as attachments.
Does your data train AI models?
Depends on the account.
On personal accounts, Free, Plus and Pro, conversations are used to improve OpenAI's models by default. The person can turn this off: the setting is called "Improve the model for everyone", under Settings, then Data Controls.
On the business plans, ChatGPT Business (which used to be called Team), Enterprise and Edu, OpenAI says your data is not used for training unless you opt in. The training question is really an account question.
Where is your data processed?
Mostly the US.
For a personal account, assume the United States. The business plans come with published enterprise privacy commitments, and OpenAI now offers data residency for new business workspaces in several regions including the UK, meaning conversations and uploaded files can be stored at rest here.
A personal account has none of that. It is a consumer service under consumer terms.
What changes between free and paid?
The tier is the story.
A member of staff with a personal ChatGPT account is an individual consumer in the eyes of the terms. Your organisation has no contract with OpenAI, no admin view of what is being pasted in, and no say in the settings.
The paid business plans exist precisely to change that. Most charity ChatGPT use I encounter is on personal accounts.
Can your organisation turn it off?
Not for personal accounts.
If staff use personal accounts there is nothing for an administrator to control, because there is no administrator. Nobody in your organisation can see the conversations, change the settings or switch anything off. Business and Enterprise plans add a workspace an admin actually manages.
What does this mean for the people you support?
ChatGPT can only see what someone gives it, but people give it a lot.
A caseworker pasting notes to tidy them up, or a fundraiser uploading a donor export to find patterns, is moving personal data about real people onto a consumer service under terms nobody in your organisation has read, let alone signed.
What to check this week
- Find out which accounts are in use. Ask, without blame, who uses ChatGPT for work and whether it is a personal or a work account. An amnesty tone gets honest answers. Punishment tones get silence.
- Turn off model improvement on personal accounts. Anyone using a personal account for anything work adjacent should open Settings, then Data Controls, and turn off "Improve the model for everyone".
- Give regular users a proper home. If people rely on it weekly, a ChatGPT Business plan or a private alternative puts the use under an agreement your organisation actually holds, and Business workspaces can be set up with UK data residency.
Sources
Everything above is my plain English reading of what OpenAI publishes. The originals:
- OpenAI: How your data is used to improve model performance reviewed 2 July 2026
- OpenAI: Enterprise privacy at OpenAI reviewed 2 July 2026
- OpenAI: Data residency and inference residency for ChatGPT reviewed 2 July 2026
Vendors change these documents quietly and often. If you spot something out of date, email me and I'll re-verify the entry.
What this page cannot tell you
This page can tell you what ChatGPT does with what goes into it. It cannot tell you what goes into it at your organisation, and that is the half that matters.
The answers above kept splitting on whose account it is, and the free personal kind is invisible to you: it shows up in no system you run and on no bill you pay, and nobody declares it on a survey.
So the next step is not a setting. It is finding out what is being pasted, by whom, from which accounts, which is what a discovery is for. And your team needs a rule clearer than "be careful", which my free Charity AI Policy Generator writes with you in a few minutes.
See your whole toolkit at once
This page covers one tool. The AI Exposure Report Generator covers your toolkit: tick the tools your charity uses and get one report showing what the AI inside each of them does with your data, as a Word document you can table at your next meeting. Free, and nothing you tick leaves your browser.
The Report Generator, start to finish: tick your tools, read your exposure, download the report.
Read the other tools
The same questions, answered for every tool in the directory.
Your office suite
Microsoft 365 Copilot
The AI inside Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams. It can reach whatever the signed in person can reach.
Verified 2 July 2026 →
Google Workspace with Gemini
Gemini inside Gmail, Docs, Drive and Meet. Google says your content is not used to train models outside your domain. What it can reach is the longer answer.
Verified 3 July 2026 →AI chatbots
ChatGPT
The one your staff are probably already using. What happens to what they type depends entirely on whose account it is.
You are here
Google Gemini
Google's chatbot, one tap away on Android phones, in Chrome and in search. On a personal account, the training switch is on until someone finds it.
Verified 2 July 2026 →
Claude
Anthropic's chatbot. The same personal versus organisational story as the others, with the training question put to you as a setting.
Verified 2 July 2026 →Meeting notetakers
Otter.ai
The notetaker that joins your meetings, and can invite itself to the next one. What it hears may help train its AI.
Verified 2 July 2026 →
Microsoft Teams
The meeting recorder your charity already owns. Everything it captures becomes a file in OneDrive and SharePoint, where the rest of the AI can reach it.
Verified 3 July 2026 →
Zoom AI Companion
The AI inside the video calls much of the sector runs on. Zoom's no training promise is unusually specific, and there is a reason it is worded that way.
Verified 2 July 2026 →
Fathom
The free notetaker that arrives one personal install at a time. The recordings live in the US, and the training answer has two halves.
Verified 3 July 2026 →Charity CRMs
Beacon
A UK charity CRM with AI on every plan since 2024. Beacon publishes where your data sits and how to switch the AI off, which leaves one question to ask them directly.
Verified 2 July 2026 →
Donorfy
A UK charity CRM where the AI mostly arrives through the side door: optional integrations. What you connect decides where your supporter data goes.
Verified 2 July 2026 →
CiviCRM
The open source CRM ships no AI of its own. What that is worth to you depends on which CiviCRM you are running: one your organisation hosts, or a hosted product somebody sells you. Everything below splits along that line.
Verified 20 July 2026 →
Salesforce
In much of the sector through ten free licences. The AI paperwork is detailed and mostly reassuring, with one default that runs the other way.
Verified 3 July 2026 →Accounts
Xero
Your accounts package now has an assistant called JAX. Xero says your data is not used to train its AI, and names the AI companies your questions travel to.
Verified 20 July 2026 →
QuickBooks
Intuit's accounts package now has an assistant throughout. Its privacy statement says your information is used to train its AI models, and it says so in as many words.
Verified 3 July 2026 →Marketing and design
Mailchimp
Your supporter mailing list lives here, and Mailchimp belongs to Intuit now, which means the same small print as QuickBooks covers it.
Verified 3 July 2026 →
Canva
The design tool half the sector lives in, free through Canva for Nonprofits. Whether your uploads help train AI depends on whose account they sit in.
Verified 3 July 2026 →