How do you stop apps from training AI on your voice?

Some apps that train on your voice give you a setting for it, and the setting may be in the app's privacy section or in your account. Turning it off stops the company from using your audio for training from that point on. It does not delete what has already been kept, and it does not stop the company from processing your audio to give you the service. Check both the setting and the policy, because the setting sometimes covers only part of what the policy describes.

Start by finding the setting that names training

Look for a switch whose name mentions training, improvement or the model. Names differ. Apple calls it Improve Siri & Dictation, Microsoft's Copilot app calls it Training on voice conversations, and Wispr Flow calls it Improve the model for everyone. If you cannot find one, search the app's settings and its privacy policy for "train", "improve" and "model" before you decide that none exists.

On a Mac, turn off Improve Siri & Dictation

This setting is shared with Siri, so turning it off changes both. The steps below follow Apple's Mac Help page for Dictation, as we checked it on October 16, 2026. The menu names are those of System Settings in current versions of macOS, and older versions may use different names.

1. Open the Apple menu, then choose System Settings.
2. Click Privacy & Security in the sidebar. You may need to scroll down.
3. Click Analytics & Improvements.
4. Turn off Improve Siri & Dictation ¹.

With the setting on, Apple may store a sample of your Siri and Dictation audio and review it ². General text Dictation on a Mac is processed on your device and is not sent to Siri servers ³. The setting governs whether samples are kept for improvement, not whether recognition happens on your Mac.

In Copilot for Windows, turn off the voice setting

Copilot's policy says it uses voice and conversation data for AI training, with exceptions for certain categories of users and for people who opt out ⁴. The opt-out is set in the app. Microsoft describes the path as Settings, then Privacy, then Training on voice conversations ⁵.

Two cautions apply. First, the setting for voice is separate from the setting for text ⁵, so you must change both if you want neither used for training. Second, Microsoft's privacy controls page says its steps describe the older Copilot app, and that an updated app has been available since August 18, 2026 ⁶. Open the app you use and confirm the setting's name and location before you rely on this path.

In Wispr Flow, turn off Improve the model for everyone

Wispr Flow's privacy page describes an Improve the model for everyone setting. The company says that, if you turn it off, nothing you say is used to train its models ⁷. Check the setting's position in the app rather than assuming it is off.

In Windows voice typing, contributing clips is optional

Microsoft says you can use voice typing without contributing voice clips, and that contributing them is optional ⁸. If you have contributed clips and want to stop, open voice typing, select Settings, and follow the links there to stop contributing ⁹.

If an app has no setting, keep the audio on your device

Some tools offer no training setting. In that case, the most direct protection is to pick a tool where recognition happens on your computer. Microsoft says that its device-based speech recognition processes your voice locally and sends no voice data to Microsoft ¹⁰. That statement covers voice data only, so read the policy for any other data the app keeps.

If you use a service through a business or an API, check the terms for that account type. OpenAI says data sent to its API is not used to train or improve its models unless the customer explicitly opts in ¹¹. Consumer apps and API customers can have different rules.

Yap, which we make, is an on-device dictation app for Mac and Windows, so recognition runs on your computer. Its settings and policy still decide what you share, so check them as you would for any other app.

Check what the setting does not cover

Turning off training does not remove recordings that are already stored, and it does not limit how long an app keeps data for other purposes. Before you trust a setting, read the policy for three things: how long audio is kept, who can review it, and which partners receive it. The dictation privacy policy checklist explains how to read each one. For the Otter case, see whether Otter.ai uses your recordings to train its AI. To learn whether training can expose what you said, read whether AI models can leak what you dictated. The improve Siri and Dictation entry explains the Apple setting in more detail. For the full picture, see our guide on whether dictation apps train AI on your voice and the voice privacy overview.