OpenAI hired contractors to read real ChatGPT conversations under an internal programme called Project Lily, while its 'Improve the model for everyone' setting does not automatically remove chats that were already eligible for model improvement when a user later opts out, according to reporting by 404 Media published on 14 September 2026.
The contractors assess ChatGPT's responses to real user prompts, and some assignments contain entire conversations rather than individual messages. OpenAI's current guidance says switching off the Improve setting prevents new conversations from being used to train its models.
