Default opt-in to using user data to train AI models is a rapidly growing trend. This has been revealed recently Meta used Instagram photos to train its AISimilarly, X starts using user data to train its Grok AI As a default. And now, an X user (@nixcraft) claimed that Microsoft is training its AI models on Word and Excel documents. This created a lot of uproar on the internet.
X Post suggested that Microsoft has quietly enabled “Connected Experiences” to use your private Office documents for AI training. It did not ask for explicit user permission and added users without their knowledge. After reading the post, I tried to learn about “Connected Experience” and what its terms and description say.
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First of all the conversation started with one medium post, but it doesn’t mention the exact words where Microsoft says Office documents are used for AI training. In Microsoft Word, you can find privacy settings under Account > Manage Settings > Connected Experiences. Here, it says “Experiences that analyze your content.”
This term may have led users to believe that Microsoft was using Word documents to train AI models. However, when you click “Learn More,” Microsoft’s support page They say:
“Connected experiences that analyze your content are experiences that use your Office content to provide you with design recommendations, edit suggestions, data insights, and similar features. For example, PowerPoint designer or translator.
Basically, when you use AI-powered features in Office apps, it analyzes your content. For example, the Microsoft editor uses your content to check grammar. Analyzing data in Excel uses your data to find trends and patterns, etc. Microsoft has listed all the features where it analyzes content.
Now, if you disable “Connected Experiences”, some of these features become unavailable in Office apps as well. In short, there is no mention of AI training for Office documents on the support page.
Finally, Microsoft also responded to the X post, saying, “In M365 apps, we do not use customer data to train LLMs. This setting enables only features that require Internet access, such as co-authoring a document.,
So in short, Microsoft doesn’t use your Word documents or Excel data to train its AI models. Although some companies are indeed resorting to questionable tactics to collect your data, that is not the case here, at least for now.
