OpenAI is adding a feature that will allow ChatGPT to remember both information about individual users and how they want the chatbot to respond to different types of queries.

Why it matters: It's another step in allowing the chatbot to customize itself to the person using it.

Details: The new memory feature is similar to giving custom instructions to ChatGPT and allows that information to be stored for future queries.

• The feature is rolling out to a small number of free and paid ChatGPT Plus subscribers.
• OpenAI says the memory feature will be made available to business customers once the company is ready to broadly release the feature.

How it works: Users can explicitly ask ChatGPT to remember something.

• They will be able to see what ChatGPT is storing as memories, delete individual items from memory or delete the entire collection of memories.
• People will also be able to opt in and out of the memory feature and choose whether any feedback is used to train OpenAI's models.
• An incognito-like mode will be available allowing people to conduct queries without drawing on memories.

Between the lines: OpenAI says it recognizes that the memory feature also raises additional safety and privacy concerns.

• It says it has "taken steps to assess and mitigate biases, and steer ChatGPT away from proactively remembering sensitive information, like your health details - unless you explicitly ask it to."

Go deeper: Exclusive: Altman says ChatGPT will have to evolve in "uncomfortable" ways