A finance director has signed off on AI for the team. The request looked simple: let people use ChatGPT to speed up the month-end close. Then the IT lead asked one question back. "Which ChatGPT do you mean?"
It is the question that decides everything. One person on the team has a free account. Another pays for Plus out of pocket. A third has a Workspace licence that came in through a marketing subscription. Three answers of "ChatGPT", three different privacy stories. The tool on screen looks identical. What sits underneath is not.
For a leader making the call, that is the whole point. The biggest privacy variable is not which AI tool the team picks. It is which account tier runs underneath it.
Same screen, different terms
A free or personal account is built for an individual, not an organisation. That creates three consequences at once.
Input can be used to improve the model. On most consumer tiers this is on by default, and the user has to turn it off. There is no data processing agreement, so the organisation has no contractual say in how the vendor handles personal data. And there is no admin who can manage settings, members, or shared links centrally. Everything sits with the individual user.
A business or enterprise tier reverses all three. Data is excluded from training by default. There is a data processing agreement under GDPR. And an admin can manage members, apps, settings, and sharing.
That difference matters more in practice than the choice between ChatGPT and Gemini.
The four vendors side by side
For the four tools most teams reach for, the gap between tiers looks like this.
| Account tier | Training default | Data processing agreement | Admin control |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT Free, Plus, Pro (personal) | Input can be used for model improvement unless the user opts out in Data Controls | No, consumer terms | None, all settings sit with the user |
| ChatGPT Team, Enterprise, Edu | Input excluded from training by default | Yes | Members, apps, and settings; Enterprise adds SSO, SCIM, and retention |
| Gemini Apps (free, consumer) | Chats may be used for improvement and may be reviewed by humans | No, consumer terms | None |
| Gemini for Workspace | Input not used for training, not human-reviewed | Yes, under Workspace terms | Managed through the Workspace console |
| Consumer Copilot | Consumer terms; no enterprise data protection | No | None |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot | Prompts and responses not used to train the underlying models; EU Data Boundary applies | Yes, under Microsoft terms | Managed through the Microsoft 365 environment |
| Claude Free, Pro, Max (consumer) | Since late 2025, chats are used for training unless the user opts out | No, consumer terms | None |
| Claude Team, Enterprise | Input under commercial terms, not used for training by default | Yes | Members and settings |
A few rows need context.
At OpenAI, the model trains on input from personal ChatGPT Free, Plus, and Pro accounts by default; the user turns it off under Settings, Data Controls, "Improve the model for everyone". For Team, Enterprise, and Edu, input is excluded from training by default (source: OpenAI, enterprise privacy, accessed June 2026).
Google draws the sharpest consumer-versus-business line. Gemini Apps may use chats for improvement, and human reviewers can see anonymised samples. Gemini for Workspace does not use input for training and is not human-reviewed (source: Google Workspace, AI privacy, accessed June 2026).
Microsoft is just as clear: Microsoft 365 Copilot does not use prompts and responses to train the underlying models, with the EU Data Boundary keeping EU traffic inside the EU. The consumer version of Copilot does not carry that enterprise data protection (source: Microsoft Learn, enterprise data protection, accessed June 2026).
Anthropic changed its consumer terms in late 2025. Since then, chats from Free, Pro, and Max users are used for training unless someone opts out; existing users had to choose by 28 September 2025. Enterprise, education, and API accounts were excluded from that change and run under commercial terms where input is not used for training by default (source: Anthropic, updates to consumer terms, August 2025).
The pattern holds: the four vendors differ in the details, but the dividing line falls between consumer and business every time, not between one brand and another.
The same question, beyond the four names everyone checks
ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and Claude are the four a leader thinks to ask about, because they are the four with a marketing budget. They are rarely the only four actually in use. BeeSensible's catalog runs this same tier comparison, training default and all, against more than 700 AI tools, for whatever your team has actually opened, not just the ones everyone remembered to ask about.
Outlook
