Perplexity

Perplexity uses your searches and feedback to improve its own models unless you turn off the AI data setting (called “AI Data Retention” or “AI Data Usage” in its help articles). It says its contracts forbid third-party model providers such as OpenAI and Anthropic from training on Perplexity data, and that content from linked email accounts is never used for training.

History is kept until you delete it; deleted accounts are erased within 30 days. Incognito searches are never stored and expire within 24 hours. Enterprise data is never used for training, and the API has zero data retention. Perplexity holds SOC 2 Type 2 and says it does not send queries or conversation content to advertisers, though it shares identifiers and usage data with advertising partners for measurement.

We found no data protection regulator action against Perplexity. In July 2026 Germany’s state media authorities ruled that its chatbot falls under German media law, a transparency ruling rather than a privacy one.