Every AI request sends far more than your question — here is what travels

When you send a message to an AI model, the provider receives much more than just your typed question — including system instructions, full conversation history, attached files, and tool definitions. Because large language models have no memory between sessions, the application must resend the entire prior conversation with each new message, meaning a document pasted early in a chat is retransmitted repeatedly. In retrieval-augmented generation setups, the application may also silently attach several pages of relevant document excerpts before forwarding your request to the model. AI agents that operate in loops pose additional exposure risks, as file contents, command outputs, and even credentials can end up embedded in prompts sent to the provider. Understanding what the application is permitted to read — not the model itself — is central to assessing what data actually leaves your device.