Are AI Companion Apps Actually Private? What We Found

Data retention, encryption, and account deletion vary wildly between providers. Our breakdown of who protects your chats.

Privacy is the question we get asked most often, and it is the area where AI companion apps differ the most. We reviewed the published privacy policies, tested account deletion flows, and checked for encryption in transit and at rest across every platform in our rankings.

The good news: the leading platforms encrypt data in transit and offer a clear path to delete your account and associated chat history. The bad news: data retention windows vary widely, and a few smaller apps were vague about how long they keep conversation logs or whether chats are used to train models.

Our advice is simple. Use a dedicated email, read the retention policy before you subscribe, and favor providers that let you delete your data on demand. Platforms that make deletion easy tend to take the rest of their privacy obligations seriously too.