You can now transfer your chats and personal information from other chatbots directly into Gemini

When it comes to AI chatbots, there is a war going on for consumer attention right now. All the major chatbot providers are looking to grow their user base and, in a small coup for themselves, Google has made it significantly easier for users of those other chatbots to switch to Gemini.

Thursday the company announced what it calls “switch tools,” new widgets designed to allow users to transfer “memories” (essentially bits of personal information) and even entire chat histories from other chatbots directly to Gemini. Users can easily share “key preferences, relationships and personal context” this way, the company says.

The idea is to make it significantly easier to adopt Google’s AI Assistant, because users won’t have to spend a lot of time retraining 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 way, Gemini coaches the user on what types of information would be useful to know about him or her, while also facilitating the transfer of that information to his own archive.

“Once you import these memories, Gemini will understand the same important facts you’ve shared with other apps, like your interests, your sibling’s name, or where you grew up,” the company says. “Rather than starting 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 all you need to do is 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 where you left off,” the company says. Google says users will also have the option 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 massive distribution advantages, including its default placement on Android devices and the Chrome browser – has lagged in consumer opinion. 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 intended to help Google catch up.