# Personal memory (AI assistant)

**Source:** https://promtable.com/glossary/personal-memory

> Personal memory in AI assistants is the per-user persistent context — preferences, facts, history — that the assistant retains across sessions to personalise its behaviour and answers.

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Personal memory in AI assistants is the per-user persistent context — preferences, facts, history — that the assistant retains across sessions to personalise its behaviour and answers.

Personal memory turned consumer AI assistants from one-shot chatbots into ongoing relationships in 2024-2026. ChatGPT Memory, Claude Projects memory, Gemini Gems memory, and custom assistant frameworks all let users explicitly or implicitly add facts the assistant remembers across sessions. The UX problem: making memory visible (so users know what's stored), controllable (so they can edit or forget), and useful (so the assistant actually uses what it remembers). The technical pattern: store facts in a small DB, retrieve relevant ones into context per turn, write new facts back when the user provides them.

## When to use

- Consumer AI assistants.
- Per-user personalised experiences.

## Common mistakes

- Storing PII without explicit consent.
- No editing UI — users can't correct wrong memories.

## Related terms

- [stateful-agent](https://promtable.com/glossary/stateful-agent)
- [context-distillation](https://promtable.com/glossary/context-distillation)
- [embedded-bot](https://promtable.com/glossary/embedded-bot)

*Last updated: 2026-06-01*
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