AI Assistants Want Your Inbox. Ask These 6 Questions First
Before you connect an AI assistant to your email, calendar or payments, ask about training, memory, other people's data, who can read it and how to leave.
AI assistants are moving from answering questions to doing things for you: reading your email, managing your calendar, paying for things. To do that, they ask for access to your accounts — and, increasingly, they remember what they learn. Here's what to ask before you connect one to your life.
1. Does it train on my conversations and files?
Many AI products use what you type and upload to improve their models unless you switch it off. Find the setting before you start, not after. For anything involving your finances, health or identity documents, look for a product that doesn't train on your data at all.
2. What does it remember, and can I see it?
"Memory" makes assistants more helpful and more invasive at the same time. Ask what's stored, whether you can view it, and whether you can delete specific memories or everything at once.
3. Does it collect information about other people?
An assistant that reads your messages also reads what your friends, family and coworkers send you. Reporting on Meta's new Muse agent described constantly updated notes about users and the people they know, drawn from connected messages — information about people who never signed up.
4. Who can read what it stores?
If the company can read your stored data, so can anyone who compromises the company or legally compels it. Ask whether stored data is encrypted in a way that keeps the company out — and whether that option exists yet or is only promised.
5. How does the company make money?
An assistant made by an advertising company sits inside a business built on knowing more about you. Even with a sincere promise that one product's data stays out of ad systems, it's fair to weigh the company's track record — and the record of the biggest ad companies includes billion-dollar privacy penalties.
6. What happens to my data if I leave?
Can you disconnect accounts, delete memories and close your account — and is the deletion real, including backups on a stated schedule?
Where we stand
Unfoggable uses AI for one narrow job: reading a document you've sent to your vault so it can be filed and dated, and reminding you before things expire. It doesn't build a profile of you, doesn't take notes on the people in your life, and never trains on your documents. We're paid by subscriptions, not ads. Our privacy policy names every service that handles your data.
AI can be genuinely useful. Just make sure the help you're getting isn't paid for with everything you are.