Memory

The definition

The store of facts, preferences, and records a system keeps so it doesn’t start from nothing each time. What is stored — distinct from which stored facts are currently true (see Governed state).

The same words the glossary hub and the public data mirror carry; this page is the stable address for the term.

Related terms

• Continuity layer

  A continuity layer is the part of an AI system that carries forward governed state across sessions, tools, models, and hosts: what is currently true, what…

• Chatbot

  A session-bound assistant: you type, it answers. Unless a memory feature is added, the conversation ends with the session. The first step of the Start Here…

• State

  The current condition of a user, workflow, task, or process — what persists between steps and sessions. Distinct from governed state, which adds provenance…

• RAG (retrieval-augmented generation)

  Fetching passages that look relevant to a query and feeding them to the model. RAG is a retrieval mechanism inside the memory band; it does not decide which…

• Memory governance

  The rules that decide what may be written to memory, by whom, and how a changed fact is retired. It is the part still underdeveloped in most memory systems:…

• Governed state

  The authoritative current answer a continuity layer maintains — every write passing through a contract, and every fact able to show the lineage behind it.

• Bi-temporal memory

  Memory that tracks two independent time axes — valid time (when a fact is true in the world) and record time (when the system learned it) — so it can answer…

• Erasure

  Authorized deletion of stored memory: honoring a deletion request, making sure the removed fact stops influencing answers, and being able to show it is gone.…

Where it shows up on this site

• Claude memory · AnthropicAnthropic's chat app, on the web, desktop and phones. Its memory is kept as topics you can open. Scorecard 13.5/19, exit grade 3.5/4.
• Gemini memory · GoogleGoogle's chat app, tied to your Google account. Memory draws on your past chats and the instructions you save. Scorecard 12.5/19, exit grade 2/4.
• ChatGPT memory · OpenAIOpenAI's chat app, on the web, desktop and phones. Memory comes as saved memories plus what it draws from past chats. Scorecard 12/19, exit grade 1.5/4.
• Mistral Vibe memory · MistralMistral's assistant, from the French AI company, with Work, Code and Chat modes. Its memory is called the Knowledge Base. Scorecard 12/19, exit grade 2.5/4.
• Perplexity memory · PerplexityPerplexity's search-first chat app. Memory saves details between your conversations. Scorecard 10.5/19, exit grade 2/4.
• Copilot memory · MicrosoftMicrosoft's assistant on Windows, in Edge and on phones. Memory is for personal Microsoft accounts. Scorecard 10/19, exit grade 2/4.
• Grok memory · xAIxAI's chat app, also built into X. Its pages no longer mention memory across chats, and say nothing about seeing, editing or exporting one. Scorecard 7/19, exit grade 0/4.
• DeepSeek memory · DeepSeekDeepSeek's chat app, from the Chinese AI lab. Its pages describe chat history that syncs across devices, not memory. Scorecard 5/19, exit grade 0/4.