Google is borrowing Anthropic’s memory import approach, letting Gemini users bring over saved reminders, preferences, and full chat histories from apps like ChatGPT and Claude. The process works by copying a suggested prompt into the previous AI app, generating a summary, and pasting it into Gemini, which saves the information in its own context. Users can also upload chat histories as a ZIP file (up to 5 GB) and continue previous conversations inside Gemini. Google is renaming “Past Chats” to “Memory,” with the rollout happening gradually.
Anthropic pioneered this approach after OpenAI drew criticism for a military deal Anthropic had turned down on ethical grounds. With users already looking to switch, Anthropic wanted to give them an extra reason to make the move. Both Google and Anthropic rely on the same basic method for data extraction—a simple prompt that asks the existing AI app to output everything it has stored about the user.
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