If you connect your Google content apps to Search, Google may use what it learns from them to show you ads. Google's Search Help page spells this out in its common questions. Connecting is opt-in, and you can disconnect whenever you want.
What Google's page says
The page covers content apps such as Workspace (Gmail and Calendar) and Photos when you link them to Search services. Once linked, Search may use summaries, excerpts and inferences drawn from those apps to personalize your results. The page adds that the same information may also be used to show you ads.
Google's page also states that ads won't be based directly on your Gmail inbox or your Photos library. Sensitive categories are excluded from ad personalization. Google also says advertisers don't get access to your Gmail inbox or your Photos library.
What changes and what doesn't
What changes is the link. Connecting an app gives Search material to work from, and that material can feed ad personalization along with results.
What doesn't change:
- It is opt-in. Nothing is connected until you choose to connect it.
- Ads are not built directly from your inbox or library. Google's wording is about summaries, excerpts and inferences.
- Sensitive categories are excluded from ad personalization.
Photos is the one with a regional catch: connecting it isn't available everywhere.
Google's page also says the feature needs you to be 18 or older and to have Personalized Recommendations turned on.
Related: Gemini Personal Intelligence in Android Auto and Google's Gemini agent for enterprise work.
How to check or turn it off
Open your Google Account and go to Search Services Personalization, then turn on Personalized Recommendations. From there, go to Additional Personal Intelligence, then Connected Content Apps. You can disconnect at any time.
If you never connected a content app, none of this connected-app use applies to you. If you did, it is worth a quick look, because the same link that improves your results can also shape the ads you see.
