When it comes to AI chatbots, there’s currently a war on for consumer attention. All the big chatbot providers are looking to increase their user count and, in a minor coup for itself, Google just made it significantly easier for users of those other chatbots to defect to Gemini.
On Thursday, the company announced what it calls “switching tools,” new widgets that are designed to allow users to transfer “memories” (basically chunks of personal information) and even entire chat histories from other chatbots directly into Gemini. Users can easily share “key preferences, relationships, and personal context” in this way, the company says.
The idea is to make it significantly easier to adopt Google’s AI asststant, as users won’t have to spend large amounts of time re-training Gemini on who they are and what they want.
The memory feature works like this: Gemini will suggest a prompt that the user can enter into their current chatbot, which will then generate a response that can be copied and pasted back into Gemini. In this fashion, Gemini coaches the user on what kinds of information it would be helpful to know about them, while also helping facilitate the transmission of that information back into its own archive.
“Once you import these memories, Gemini will understand the same key facts you’ve shared with other apps, like your interests, your sibling’s name, or where you grew up,” the company says. “Instead of starting over from scratch, you can quickly get Gemini up to speed on what matters most to you.”
When it comes to importing chat histories, Google says that all you need is to upload them in a zip file. It’s relatively easy to export chat logs via zips from most chatbots—including from ChatGPT and Claude. This allows users to “seamlessly pick up right where you left off,” the company says. Google says users also have the ability to search through those old chats.
ChatGPT remains the big kahuna in the consumer chatbot market, with OpenAI announcing last month that it has reached 900 million weekly active users. Gemini — despite Google’s vast distribution advantages, including its default placement across Android devices and the Chrome browser — has lagged in consumer mindshare. Last month, it shared its own numbers during Alphabet’s fourth-quarter earnings call, saying Gemini had surpassed 750 million monthly active users. This move is clearly aimed at helping Google catch up.
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