Google Drive’s new ‘Smart’ AI features are forcing me to move all my private documents

When Google started its operations in the late 1990s, it set out to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Despite continual, and sometimes secretive, iteration, the clause remains intact in its mission statement. With the AI boom, Google wants to make information accessible without any significant effort, and is extending these principles beyond web search. Last month, it extended the same altruistic virtues to Google Drive, where you now see AI overview-style summaries for your folders. With this change, Google’s AI will look through your folders, any directories within them, the files stored in them, and even the contents of those files, so you can find whatever you’re looking for immediately.

These “smart” features in Google Drive are available to all paying Gemini subscribers and Workspace users. Google says it saves time and helps you discover files buried under several layers of folders. But I’m deeply unsettled by Google raking through my files — especially without my explicit consent — and the only solution I feel I have now is to stop trusting Google with anything private.

I have been using Google Drive for nearly as long as it has been around. Over these 13+ years, I moved much of my private life to it for quick access. That means Google Drive has always been where I store all my education and work-related records, all certifications, and digital copies of almost all my IDs. Having done so has allowed me to avoid carrying all of them with me or accessing them when I least expected to need them — even when I was required to sign into a random computer at a printing shop. The convenience just made me stick.

But Google’s recent push to use AI features more aggressively and to start digging into the files I store in Drive or the ones I receive over Gmail (the latter was also implemented very recently) has really upset me.

What truly moved me was how blatant and in-your-face these summarization features are. Google now boldly claims that it looked through my files and has a lowdown on everything that’s in there. Every time I open a folder, it’s eager to give me a summary up top — without me even asking. I open a PDF, and it springs right up, outlining the document for me.

Honestly, I would be okay if it limited the summaries to vague descriptions based on the file types and titles. But it goes on to scrutinize the insides and doesn’t even spare printed documents scanned and saved as images. Even the ones with poor resolution. I lack the ability to describe how that really grinds my gears without being explicit.

On top of that, I don’t know what’s scarier, the fact that Google’s AI has access to my files or the fact that these features were pushed onto me — mind you, a paying Google AI Pro subscriber — without my consent or immediate knowledge. I was informed about the changes in a press release, not even in a boilerplate email.

When I asked Google why the features are available on an opt-out rather than opt-in basis, it said that purchasing a Google AI subscription constitutes consent to try out new AI features. “We enable them by default so users can utilize the value they purchased immediately,” I was told by a spokesperson.

In my view, as a subscriber who voluntarily pays to try out Gemini or features like NotebookLM, I should have the privilege to decide whether to try a new feature. That should especially apply to something that makes me feel I’m being snooped on.

During my exchange with Google, I was also informed that all the data being processed by the AI in Drive is contained in a private space. I was assured that Google does not use files stored in Drive (or any other Workspace apps) to train or refine any generative AI models. I was further told that all data stored in Drive is “encrypted at rest and in transit by default for all users.” While that had already surfaced during my search for privacy features in Drive, this made me curious about how Gemini can view and summarize my files if they are encrypted. I was told the following:

Google manages the keys for the service to provide features like search and indexing. Gemini can access the content on your behalf (and only when you explicitly interact with the feature) to generate the summary.

That makes sense, but it triggers two concerns. First, as I also grumbled previously, is that Drive generates a summary even when I don’t explicitly ask it to, or interact with the feature. Second, if Google HAS access to encryption keys, it also, in theory, has the liberty to access my key documents if it wanted to.

Color me skeptical, but what if Google updates its privacy policies in the future, giving itself the option to use our files for better ad targeting, if not to train its models? There’s no guarantee that it wouldn’t happen. And while I’m not an expert at law, it’s perfectly reasonable to believe that could happen.

Besides convenience, the other reason I’ve stuck with Google Drive has been the price. Like most of us, I initially used Google Drive for free. The 15GB (up from the initially allotted 5GB) felt sufficient for storing essentials for longer durations, while still leaving enough room to swap between the temporary items. But when Google started counting my WhatsApp and Photos backups against my Drive storage, I happily switched to an upgraded paid plan with Google One.

Until getting a Gemini Pro subscription, I continued to pay for Google One and was satisfied for the most part. Family sharing for Drive storage made financial sense, too. In addition to the fact that most of my family members still use Android on their primary devices (or at least depend on services such as Gmail), Google One remained one of the most cost-effective options.

But with the new AI summarization features in Drive, questions like “Is my data even safe?,” “What if it gets used to train Gemini or other internal models?” and most importantly, “Can I even trust Google anymore?” have overridden my general faith in the company.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against AI. I have come to rely on it to handle many of my mundane tasks — but I don’t want it to secretly snoop on me. There’s one thing I firmly believe in: the reins must be in the hands of the users. I know that sounds a bit oxymoronic, given that AI has been trained on a breadth of information and sources without explicit guidance from their original creators. But exercising caution becomes imperative when handling documents that may contain private information of users, and becomes even more pressing when they pay a company to secure the files.

So what are the next steps for me? A simple solution for me would be to turn off the smart features. If you’re wondering how that works, click the gear icon on the top right, then head to Settings > Privacy > Manage Workplace smart features settings and turn off the toggle next to Smart features in Google Workplace.

However, with my faith in Google receding, I’m moving anything containing my private information out of Google Drive — strictly as a preemptive measure. Currently, I’m parking my essential files, like IDs, key tax documentation, insurance cards, etc., in Bitwarden. Although it’s a password manager, it also works great as a file storage system and is available across both web and mobile platforms. I have used Bitwarden as a password manager, and find it to be one of the least fussy solutions, so I’m sticking with it for now. My colleague Karandeep also recommends a similar approach, though he suggests using another app, Enpass, instead.

With Bitwarden, however, storage is limited to 1GB, even on paid tiers, which can be a chokepoint if I want to store everything less critical, like useful paper invoices, warranty documents, slips, etc. And that is why the eventual goal is to move to client-side encryption options like Filen. However, I recently became intrigued by another app, Cryptomator, which encrypts files on your device and can sync them to standard cloud storage services like Google Drive or Dropbox. However, since I haven’t used either of those apps and am not familiar with their limitations, I cannot recommend them yet — though I would soon. Other options could be to self-host files using a NAS or storing them on a phone, secured with a local vault app, though both of these will be limiting compared to the cloud-based options I listed above.

It also becomes imperative since Google could bring these features to non-paying accounts, too, as it recently did with Gmail. I wouldn’t be surprised if it pushes us up against the wall, with the option of either continuing to use the features or turning off every useful Gemini-based feature entirely. There’s an equal chance that it doesn’t happen, and Google stays committed to upholding users’ privacy. But I’d prefer to step away and secure my sensitive documents rather than find myself loathing myself for inaction again.