Google has changed a default that matters to anyone sending sensitive data through the Gemini API. According to the API release notes dated October 26, 2026, new projects on the paid tier that use the Generate Content API, covering the generateContent, streamGenerateContent and batchGenerateContent methods, now store requests by default, with the store flag set to true. That brings the older endpoint in line with the Interactions API, which already kept requests by default.
The switch applies only to projects created on or after October 26. Google's logs documentation says projects created earlier keep their existing Generate Content setting, which is off unless a developer had already turned logging on in Google AI Studio. Storage of Gemini API logs is offered only on the paid tier.
Developers who do not want their traffic kept have two levers. They can pass store=false on individual requests, and that request-level value overrides the project setting, or they can switch off Generate Content API logging from the Settings area of AI Studio's Logs and Datasets dashboard. Setting the flag per request requires recent SDK releases: version 2.33.0 or later of google-genai for Python, 2.31.0 or later of @google/genai for JavaScript, 1.79.0 for Java and 1.76.0 for Go.
What gets stored is substantial. The logs view in AI Studio lets project members open a full prompt and response along with the context of earlier turns. By default, logs are marked for deletion after 55 days, and teams can shorten that window to 7, 14 or 28 days. Logs saved into datasets do not expire, and datasets can be exported as CSV or JSONL files or to Google Sheets. Google also invites developers to share datasets with it as demonstration examples for Gemini research, presented in the documentation as an optional step.
Some traffic is outside the scheme. Logging does not currently cover Imagen and Veo, the Gemini embedding models, the Gemini Robotics model, inputs that contain video, GIFs or PDFs, or public preview agents. Logs also stay hidden if a project has no active API key, for example after a leaked key is deleted.
Google frames logging as a way to observe and debug how applications behave and to build evaluation sets from real usage. For teams with privacy or compliance obligations, the practical effect is that a newly created project will retain prompts and outputs on Google's side unless someone opts out, so project templates and onboarding checklists may need updating. The release notes do not say why the default changed beyond matching the Interactions API, and they do not address how stored logs relate to Google's data-use terms for the paid tier.