Claude’s New Personalization Feature Lets Chatbot Recall Past Chats for Seamless Project Continuation

Anthropic’s chatbot Claude introduces a new personalization feature, enabling the AI to search through previous conversations or reference them upon request. This “past chats search” functionality is now being rolled out to Max, Team, and Enterprise subscribers, with plans for wider availability in the near future.

To utilize this feature, no special actions are required. Once available, it will be activated by default, allowing users to input simple text prompts to recall past discussions. In a demonstration on YouTube, a user is depicted asking the chatbot, “Upon my return from vacation, what were our projects last week?” The AI then displays previous tasks and inquires about the user’s preferred topic of discussion.

Unlike ChatGPT’s Memory feature, which OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman describes as a tool for getting to know users over their lifetime, Claude will only search specific chats or projects when prompted. The goal is to aid users in maintaining focus and facilitating smooth continuation of projects rather than creating an extensive AI profile.

However, it’s important to note that past conversations cannot be excluded from the chat unless they are manually deleted. To prevent Claude from searching through past chats entirely, navigate to Settings > Profile > Preferences and disable “Search and reference chats.”

Similar memory features can also be found in Google’s Gemini, Meta AI, and Microsoft’s Copilot.