If you ever stop to think about what your browsers and web platforms know about you, you’ll probably (hopefully!) get spooked. We leave footprints of our preferences and interests everywhere we go.
Things get more complicated when we are interacting with AI, and this is magnified as AI agents begin to act like our digital twins, connecting to our personal information and products in order to act on our behalf.
The more we interact with AI, the better it will get to know us. Users benefit from this arrangement in the form of more personalized AIs that anticipate their needs, and more confidence that the AI can perform tasks we they intend. On the other hand, this greater degree of intimacy comes with an expectation of control. Just as users can clear their browser cache or adjust their ad preference settings, users will need some way of knowing what the AI knows about them, and possibly some way to reset that relationship altogether.
Knowledge map
Unless a user is interacting with the AI in a private session, it is constantly storing data about the user, their activity, and their preferences. Transparent products expose this map to the user to help them understand what traces of data they have left behind.
Selective memory
When a user can see what data the AI has captured, they may wish to selectively edit what data it retains. This might be for privacy reasons, or to focus the AI's knowledge in order to get more predictable outcomes. A product may also give the user the ability to save specific details to memory in order to construct to knowledge map to meet their preferences.
Clear the cache
While it's hopefully a rare occurrence, a user may occasionally wish to start from a clean slate. Relying on them to delete and restart their account is likely to result in attrition. Instead a product can support a reset option that fully clears the AI's memory fo the user and starts anew.
