Google Now Lets Gmail and Photos Data Shape Ads: How to Turn It Off

ExplainedUpdated 24 Oct 2026

Google rewrote one sentence of its privacy policy on 16 October 2026, and that sentence decides whether what sits in your Gmail and Google Photos can shape the ads you see. The short answer: your inbox is not scanned for ads by default, but if you have switched on Personal Intelligence and connected Gmail or Photos to Search, summaries and inferences drawn from them can now feed ad personalisation. Here is what changed, who is affected in Saudi Arabia, and how to switch it off in about two minutes.

At a glance

What it is: A privacy-policy update covering Gmail, Drive and Photos data shared with Search or Gemini through Personal Intelligence
Who it's for: Anyone aged 18+ with a personal Google Account who connected "content apps" to Search services
Cost: Free feature; the trade-off is data, not money
Available in Saudi Arabia: Yes: Google's help centre lists Saudi Arabia and Arabic as supported for connecting Gmail; Calendar is US-only

Key points

On 16 Oct 2026 Google replaced its flat promise of no ads from Drive, Gmail or Photos content with a version that adds an exception for data you choose to share with other Google services.
The exception matters through one feature, Personal Intelligence, which lets AI Mode, Maps and other Search services read summaries and excerpts from Gmail and Photos.
Google says connecting is opt-in, sensitive categories such as health and religion are never used for ads, and nothing is handed to advertisers.
The same connected data can also be used to train Google's generative AI models and can be seen by human reviewers.
You can disconnect Gmail and Photos, and separately turn off personalised ads, from your Google Account settings.

What actually changed in the policy

For years Google's privacy policy carried a simple line in its advertising section: it did not show personalised ads based on content from Drive, Gmail or Google Photos. That line was a firewall people could point to. The version published on 16 October keeps the promise but bolts on a condition: Google will not do it unless you make data from those services available to other Google services that support personalised ads. Ars Technica, which reported the change on 23 October after it was spotted by Android Authority, read it as the end of the old guarantee for anyone using the new AI personalisation tools.

Google's own ads-privacy FAQ was edited the same day. The answer to "Does Google read my emails to show me ads?" still opens with a no, but now carries a dated note explaining that if you connect apps such as Photos and Workspace to other services, a subset of that data can be used to show ads depending on your settings. Google told Ars the clarification does not change how it works with advertisers and that ads will not be based "directly" on your inbox or photo library.

The word "directly" is doing a lot of work. According to Google's Search help centre, once Gmail or Photos is connected, Search may use summaries, excerpts and inferences from those sources to personalise answers, and the same information may be used to pick ads. So the raw email is not the ad signal; what an AI model concluded from the email can be.

How Personal Intelligence works, in plain English

Personal Intelligence is Google's name for letting its AI products see your own data so answers fit you. Ask AI Mode for restaurant ideas on a trip and, with Gmail connected, it can look up your hotel booking confirmation and suggest places near it. Ask Maps for directions "to my hotel" and it can find the reservation itself. The feature launched in early 2026 and is pushed with prompts inside the Google app and Gemini, which is why some people have it on without remembering they agreed.

One detail in Google's help page surprises many readers: connecting is all-or-nothing across Search services. Agreeing once lets Google Search (including AI Mode and Discover), Maps, Shopping, Flights, Hotels, Translate and News access your connected Gmail, Calendar and Photos. The Gemini app is not currently showing ads, but AI search results can include sponsored placements, and that is where your connected data and ad targeting meet.

This is a different kind of risk from the software flaws we covered in our PHP2Shell explainer: nothing is broken or leaked. It is a policy choice about how data you volunteer gets reused, which makes your settings the only real control.

How to check and switch it off: step by step

Open your Google Account (myaccount.google.com) on a computer or the Google app, and go to Data & privacy.
Scroll to Personalization settings and choose Manage Personalized Recommendations in Search Services (Google is renaming some of these menus, so it may appear as Search Services Personalization).
Open Connected Content Apps. If Google Workspace or Google Photos shows as connected, choose Disconnect for each one.
In the Gemini app, open Settings > Personal Intelligence / Connected apps and turn off any Gmail, Drive or Photos connection you do not want.
For a wider cut, open My Ad Center (myadcenter.google.com) and switch Personalized ads off. You will still see ads, but they will be based on context, such as the search you just typed, rather than your profile.
Finally, visit activity.google.com. Google notes that disconnecting an app does not delete what is already in your Search Services History, which can still be used to improve its services, so delete what you do not want kept.

Pros and cons

Pros

Genuinely useful answers: bookings, flight times and receipts surface without digging through your inbox.
The policy is now explicit, so users can make an informed choice instead of relying on an outdated promise.
Opt-in, with controls to disconnect at any time.

Cons

AI-derived inferences about your life can influence ads in AI search.
One consent covers seven or more Search services at once.
Connected data may be used to train generative models and a subset may be read by human reviewers.
Disconnecting does not erase history already collected.

Privacy and safety: what Google says it protects

Google lists three limits. It does not personalise ads using sensitive categories such as race, religion, sexual orientation or health. It does not sell personal information or pass your name or address to advertisers. And before human reviewers see interactions personalised with your content apps, it says it disconnects them from your account and reduces personal details, except where abuse or harm is being investigated. The help page is unusually blunt on one point: if your connected apps hold confidential material you would not want a reviewer to see or a model to learn from, do not connect them.

For people in Saudi Arabia, that advice deserves weight. Many residents run work, banking alerts, government notifications and family photos through a single personal Google Account. A sensible middle ground is to keep sensitive mail in a separate account or a work account (Personal Intelligence is a consumer feature and may not be available on work or school accounts), and only connect the account you are comfortable with. The wider question of how platforms monetise user activity runs through other recent stories too, from X's paid creator pilot to banks reorganising around AI, such as Barclays' 5,000 job cuts.

Why this matters beyond Google

The update is a preview of where AI assistants are heading. The more of your life an assistant can read, the better it performs, and companies that earn most of their revenue from ads will be under pressure to let those insights inform targeting. Google's move is at least written down, dated and reversible. Expect rivals building assistants with access to email and photos to face the same question, and expect regulators who already scrutinise data use in advertising to ask whether one consent screen is enough for such a broad permission.

Bottom line

If you have never connected Gmail or Photos to AI Mode or Gemini, nothing changes for you today. If you rely on Personal Intelligence for travel plans and reminders and accept ad personalisation as the price, you can leave it on knowing the trade. If you are privacy-minded, or your account holds work or family material, disconnect your content apps and turn off personalised ads in My Ad Center. It takes two minutes, and you can always turn the features back on for a single trip.

Sources

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