AI Exposure · Office suite

What Google Workspace with Gemini actually does with your data

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.

Trains on your data: Google says no
Processed: Inside your Workspace
Can you turn it off: Yes, per service
Verified: 3 July 2026, against Google's published documents

What AI is in it?

Gemini in Gmail and Docs. Drafts, rewrites and summarises using your email and documents as its raw material.
Gemini in Meet. Takes notes and produces recaps of meetings, using what was said as its source.
The Gemini app and NotebookLM. Included as core services on most Workspace editions now, so they are in the building even where nobody decided to buy AI.

Does your data train AI models?

Google says no.

Google's Workspace privacy hub is explicit: "Your content is not human reviewed or otherwise used for Generative AI model training outside your domain without permission." Chats and uploaded files in the Gemini app get the same promise.

This is the crucial difference from the same member of staff using Gemini on a personal account, where the training default runs the other way. The organisational account is doing real work here.

Where is your data processed?

Inside your Workspace.

Google says interactions with Gemini stay within your organisation and are processed inside Google's own infrastructure, under the same Workspace terms that already cover your email and files.

Where that is geographically follows how your Workspace was set up, which is the same answer as for the rest of your Google data, and worth knowing either way.

What changes between free and paid?

Included in most plans.

Gemini stopped being a paid add on and is now folded into most Workspace business plans, with the Gemini app and NotebookLM counted as core services. So if your charity runs on Google Workspace, the starting assumption is that some Gemini is already available to staff, whether or not anyone chose it.

Can your organisation turn it off?

Yes, per service.

The admin controls are fine grained: the Gemini app can be turned on or off, access can be granted or removed per service across Gmail, Drive, Docs, Meet and Chat, and retention is configurable.

The quieter control matters more. Gemini only retrieves what the signed in person already has permission to see, so years of loose sharing in Drive become findable by anyone who asks the right question. The permissions audit is the real switch.

What does this mean for the people you support?

Two things change quietly here.

Drive is where charities keep the folders nobody has tidied since the last staff change, and Gemini turns that backlog into something searchable by anyone who already has access. And a Meet recap does not know that this particular call is a supervision meeting, so the summary exists whether or not the people in it would have wanted a written record.

What to check this week

Find out what is actually switched on. Ask whoever manages your Google Workspace which Gemini features are enabled, for whom, and whether the Gemini app and NotebookLM are on. Do not assume the answer is no; on current plans the default runs towards on.
Check permissions on your most sensitive Drive areas. Pick the two or three folders holding case notes, safeguarding or HR records and review who can see them. Gemini inherits exactly these permissions.
Decide your rule for Meet notes. Agree which meetings must never have AI notes or recaps turned on, and tell the people who run them. The rule is the same one as for Teams, Zoom and Otter.

Sources

Everything above is my plain English reading of what Google publishes. The originals:

Google: Generative AI in Google Workspace Privacy Hub reviewed 3 July 2026
Google Workspace: Generative AI security, compliance and privacy reviewed 3 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.

The switches exist. Has anyone looked?

The controls above mostly exist, and they live in settings your organisation already owns. So the real question is not about Google. It is whether anyone has ever opened those settings and looked.

In most small organisations the answer is no. The account was set up years ago, the AI arrived later by licence change rather than decision, and it reads with whatever permissions years of sharing and forgotten folders have left lying around.

The checklist above is the afternoon's work. Working out what has quietly accumulated, and what the AI can now do with it, is what I look at inside a discovery. And Google Workspace with Gemini is unlikely to be the only AI in your building.

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.

Generate your charity's AI exposure 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.

You are here

AI chatbots

ChatGPT

The one your staff are probably already using. What happens to what they type depends entirely on whose account it is.

Verified 2 July 2026 →

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 →