Tessera
Guide
Who owns the memory an AI keeps about you?
A question worth asking before it gets big.
The memory an AI app builds about you is now good enough to be worth something. That makes the question of who holds it, and who edits it, a real one.
What is actually being kept
Not transcripts. A profile: your work, your preferences, the projects you keep returning to, how you like to be spoken to. Compiled quietly over months, from things you said for other reasons. It is genuinely useful, which is the point.
Three questions ownership actually means
Can you read it?
Some products show you a list. Some show you a summary of a list. Some show you nothing. A profile you cannot read is one you cannot correct, and you will not find out it is wrong until an answer built on it surprises you.
Who decides what it says?
Memory that maintains itself is the direction the industry has moved, and it works well. It also means the description of you is being edited by a process that is not you, according to what it judges worth keeping. Convenient. Also a real transfer of a small amount of authorship.
Can you leave with it?
This is the one that decides whether the memory is yours in any sense that matters. If it cannot leave the product, it is the product's asset that happens to be about you.
Why this is not a scare story. Built-in AI memory largely works, and it is reasonable to use it. The argument here is not that it will fail you. It is that "works well" and "is yours" are different properties, and only one of them is being advertised.
The structural reason this will not change on its own
A memory that follows you to a competitor is a memory that makes leaving easy. No company whose business depends on retention is going to build that as a priority. Not because anyone is being sinister, but because the incentive points the other way and always will.
Which is why a memory you own has to sit somewhere that is not inside any AI app. Tessera keeps it on your side: readable line by line, editable, and used with whichever AI you are talking to rather than owned by one of them.
Questions
Related questions
Who owns the memory an AI app keeps about me?
In practice the company running the app holds it, decides what it records, and controls whether it can leave. Whether you own it in any meaningful sense comes down to whether you can read it, correct it, and take it with you.
Can I read what an AI app remembers about me?
It varies. Some show a full list, some show a summary, some show nothing. A profile you cannot read is one you cannot correct, so it is worth checking early rather than after a surprising answer.
Why will AI companies not make memory portable?
Because memory that follows you elsewhere makes leaving easy, and retention is the business. It is an incentive problem rather than a technical one, which is why it is unlikely to resolve on its own.
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