What changed
Google changed the storage default for the Gemini Generate Content API on 26 October. In paid-tier projects created on or after that date, generateContent, streamGenerateContent and batchGenerateContent requests now use store=true unless the developer overrides it. Existing projects keep their previous setting, which remains off unless logging was already enabled. The Interactions API already stored requests by default.
The resulting project logs can include requests, responses and metadata. They are private to the developer’s Google Cloud project and separate from logs retained for abuse monitoring. Google sets a default maximum retention period of 55 days, with project-level options for 7, 14, 28 or 55 days. Logs saved into datasets do not have a fixed expiry.
Developers can disable Generate Content logging in Google AI Studio or set store=false on individual requests; the request-level value takes precedence. Google says paid-service prompts and responses in these logs are not used for product improvement or model development by default. Sharing a dataset with Google is a separate, explicit action with different data-use terms.
Our perspective
This is a small API change with a large operational consequence: two deployments of the same application can now have different retention behaviour solely because their Gemini projects were created on different dates. Logging policy therefore cannot remain an undocumented console default.
Request logs can be valuable for debugging, evaluation and incident analysis, but they may also contain source code, customer data or tool outputs. Teams should decide what they need to retain, choose the shortest useful window and make the store value explicit in their provider adapter instead of relying on a project default.
The strongest pattern is to treat model-data retention like any other deployable policy. Record it per environment, verify it during provisioning, keep dataset creation and sharing as separately permissioned actions, and test that privacy-sensitive routes consistently send store=false.
Go to the source
Primary reporting behind this brief. Our perspective is editorial analysis.
- Google — Gemini API release notes 26 Oct 2026
- Google — Gemini API logs and datasets 26 Oct 2026
- Google — Gemini API data logging and sharing policy 26 Oct 2026