Majority of users comfortable sharing search history with AI assistants, according to poll

Privacy attitudes are shifting in AI’s favor as users begin to see concrete benefits from sharing their data with chatbots. A recent poll by Android Authority reveals surprisingly high comfort levels with sharing search history with AI assistants, with 53.5% of respondents indicating they would be comfortable doing so. This finding challenges conventional wisdom about privacy concerns in the digital age and suggests that users increasingly view certain types of data sharing as an acceptable trade-off for personalized AI experiences.

The big picture: Despite growing privacy concerns in the tech world, a slight majority of users appear willing to share their search history with AI chatbots to gain personalized responses.

• Android Authority’s poll showed 53.5% of respondents were comfortable sharing their search history with AI assistants, representing a seven-point gap compared to those opposed.
• The poll followed an experiment where a journalist allowed Gemini access to his search history and reported relatively positive results from the personalization.

Why this matters: The willingness to share search data with AI represents a significant shift in how people view the privacy-utility trade-off in digital interactions.

• Search history represents a specific category of data that users might consider less sensitive than financial or medical information, yet still valuable for personalization.
• This targeted data-sharing approach could become a template for how AI companies design personalization features that balance privacy concerns with improved user experiences.

What they’re saying: Some users appear resigned to the reality that their data is already being collected and utilized by technology companies.

• One user commented, “I’m sure it was already trained on all our Google data,” reflecting a pragmatic view that if data collection is inevitable, it might as well provide direct benefits.

Behind the numbers: Several factors likely influenced respondents’ comfort with sharing search data for AI personalization.

• Many poll participants may have been reassured by reading about the journalist’s positive experience with Gemini‘s personalization features.
• Users recognize that search queries are already voluntarily provided to public search engines, making this form of data sharing feel like an extension of existing practices rather than a new privacy intrusion.