AI Tools & Assistants · AI Coding Assistants

Do AI Coding Tools Train on Your Private Code?

It depends on the tool, the plan, and the settings chosen: some AI coding assistants offer settings or business plans that exclude your code from being used for model training, while other configurations, especially free or default consumer tiers, may use submitted code to help improve the underlying models unless you opt out.

Key takeaways

Whether an AI coding tool trains on your code generally depends on the specific product, plan tier, and privacy settings in place, not a single universal answer.
Many providers offer business or enterprise plans with contractual commitments not to use submitted code for model training.
Individual or free-tier plans sometimes default to allowing code to be used for improving the model, though opt-out settings are often available.
Organizations handling proprietary or sensitive code should review a tool's specific data usage and training policy before adopting it broadly.
Settings and policies change over time, so checking a provider's current documentation is the only reliable way to confirm current behavior.

There’s No Single Answer — It Depends on the Tool and Plan

Whether an AI coding assistant trains on your private code isn’t governed by one universal rule across the industry; it depends on the specific provider, the product tier, and the settings in place. Many companies offering AI coding tools provide business or enterprise plans that come with explicit commitments not to use customer code for training their models, aimed at organizations that need assurance their proprietary code stays confidential. At the same time, some free or individual consumer tiers have historically defaulted to allowing submitted code to help improve the underlying model, sometimes with an available setting to opt out.

Because these policies differ meaningfully between providers — and even between different plans from the same provider — the only reliable way to know how a specific tool handles your code is to read that provider’s current privacy policy, terms of service, or dedicated trust documentation rather than assuming a blanket answer applies.

Why This Distinction Exists

AI coding assistants are built on large language models that improve through training on large volumes of code and, in many cases, ongoing feedback loops that can include real usage data. From a business perspective, using aggregated user interactions to refine a model can improve suggestion quality over time — but doing so with code that’s proprietary or confidential raises legitimate concerns for companies and individual developers who don’t want their code contributing to a model that might, in some form, benefit competitors or the public over time.

In response to these concerns, many providers have built tiered offerings: consumer or individual plans that may involve more permissive default data use, and business or enterprise plans that include stronger contractual and technical protections — such as guarantees that customer code isn’t retained for training — as a selling point for organizations with stricter confidentiality requirements. This mirrors a broader pattern across AI products generally, where paid or enterprise tiers often come with stronger data-handling commitments than free consumer versions.

What This Means in Practice

An individual developer using a free-tier AI coding assistant for a personal side project may reasonably accept a more permissive data policy, since the code involved isn’t sensitive. A company building proprietary software with real competitive value should treat this question with much more scrutiny — reviewing the specific tool’s policy, negotiating enterprise terms if needed, and potentially involving legal or security teams before rolling out an AI coding assistant across an engineering organization. Some organizations with especially strict requirements look for options that process code without retaining it for training at all, or that support on-premises or private deployment.

Bottom Line

Whether an AI coding tool trains on your private code depends entirely on the specific provider and plan, and the only dependable way to know for certain is to check that tool’s current privacy policy or trust documentation rather than assuming behavior is the same across the industry.

Go deeper

Important caveats

Policies differ significantly between providers and even between plans from the same provider, so no single blanket statement applies to all AI coding tools.
Even when code isn't used for training, it may still be temporarily processed or logged for purposes like abuse prevention, which is a separate concern from training.

Frequently asked questions

How can I check if a specific AI coding tool trains on my code?

The provider's privacy policy, terms of service, or dedicated trust/security documentation typically spells out whether submitted code is used for training and what opt-out options exist; checking that documentation directly is the most reliable approach.

Do enterprise plans always exclude code from training?

Many enterprise or business plans include contractual commitments against using customer code for training, but this isn't universal, so it's still worth confirming the specific terms for the plan being considered.

Can I use an AI coding assistant without any of my code being processed by the provider's servers?

Generally no, since most AI coding assistants rely on cloud-based models that process your code to generate suggestions; some tools offer local or self-hosted options that keep processing on-premises, which is a different setup worth researching separately if that's a requirement.

Sources

[1]GitHub Copilot Trust Center — GitHub
[2]OpenAI Privacy Policy — OpenAI

Written by Editorial Team

Last updated July 25, 2026

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