• Gemini has a new feature to import your memories from other AIs, like ChatGPT, which makes switching easier than ever
• I tested Gemini’s new memory import by asking ChatGPT to “sum up what you know about me,” then transferring that data
• The result was an “almost worryingly thorough list” of my preferences, habits, and personal details, showing both how powerful, and slightly unsettling, AI memory has become
  

I have used ChatGPT long enough that it has accumulated plenty of information about me, so I decided to see what Gemini could learn from it through the process. I clicked on the new "Import memory to Gemini" button in the settings menu, and was offered the option of either uploading my conversations with an AI chatbot in a zip folder or using a provided prompt to gather the information.

The prompt, which I would present to my AI of choice, asks it to "go through our past conversations and sum up what you know about me" and provide all that information in a clean list format with demographic details, preferences and interests, relations, events, and any rules I'd given it.

I gave ChatGPT the prompt, and it wrote out an almost worryingly thorough list that I then submitted to Gemini.

Gemini knows

Gemini did not suddenly become a clone of ChatGPT, but suddenly it knew a lot about me, from where I live to the kinds of hobbies I have, and even my coffee preferences. It gained the familiarity ChatGPT had accumulated over multiple years. It had more context about me and how I want it to behave, so I wouldn't need to constantly clarify my prompts.

That friction reduction is more important than it sounds. The promise of AI assistants has always been convenience, but convenience falls apart quickly when every platform makes you start over. A model that understands your patterns is often more useful than one that is technically stronger but has no idea how you think.

That creates a lock-in effect. The more a chatbot learns about your preferences, the harder it becomes to leave, even if another tool is better in some other way. Google’s import feature is a direct response to that problem.

Most people won't want to feel married to one AI service forever just because it happens to remember that they like concise answers or very strong coffee. The more portable that context becomes, the easier it is to move around and compare tools without sacrificing all the setup work that made one of them feel helpful in the first place.

AI companies are still racing on speed and capability, but continuity is important too. They do not just want to be the smartest assistant. They want to be the one who already knows how you'd like it to operate.

Google’s new import tools are an attempt to catch up on that front, and after trying them, I can say they make Gemini feel much less generic. It still has its own voice, but I don't have to tell it how to couch its answers or to accommodate my food preferences if I ask for recipe ideas.

Which is, in the world of AI assistants, a surprisingly meaningful upgrade.

Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!

And of course you can also follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, unboxings in video form, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp too.

Eric Hal Schwartz is a freelance writer for TechRadar with more than 15 years of experience covering the intersection of the world and technology. For the last five years, he served as head writer for Voicebot.ai and was on the leading edge of reporting on generative AI and large language models. He's since become an expert on the products of generative AI models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google Gemini, and every other synthetic media tool. His experience runs the gamut of media, including print, digital, broadcast, and live events. Now, he's continuing to tell the stories people want and need to hear about the rapidly evolving AI space and its impact on their lives. Eric is based in New York City.