Take Your AI Along, Just Like Your Phone
Your AI gets to know you better over time. Ensure it belongs to you, not your employer.
Figure 01.0 — Take Your AI Along, Just Like Your Phone
Yesterday at a birthday party, I noticed I was telling the same story repeatedly. Everyone, and certainly everyone's children, should have their own, paid AI account. Not to have the latest gadget, but because your AI will soon become as personal as your phone. And you wouldn't leave that behind when changing jobs.
First, what do I mean by "your own AI"?
ChatGPT and Claude are AI assistants: programmes you converse with in plain language that help you with writing, searching, calculating, and planning. Most people use the free version occasionally for a quick question.
A paid account does more. It can remember things about you: how you work, the tone you use, what you're working on. The longer you use it, the better it knows you. It becomes a kind of assistant that grows with you.
And that's precisely why it should belong to you, not your employer.
Everyone is already doing it secretly
As early as 2024, research among 31,000 workers in 31 countries showed that 78% of AI users bring their own AI tools to work.
More recent American research (May 2026) found that 76% use self-found AI tools for their work, almost a quarter even daily.
The same study shows why: 41% received nothing from their employer to learn to work with AI, and only 14% received a paid AI tool.
People aren't waiting for their boss. They sort it out themselves.
Why I think you'll soon be hired with your tools
In the past, you took your expertise to a new job. Soon, you'll also take your way of working, including the AI that knows you. This isn't futuristic:
Two-thirds of executives already said in 2024 they wouldn't hire anyone without AI skills.
Your AI memory is also truly portable. In Claude, you can import and export your memory, even from another AI assistant. Anthropic still calls this experimental.
My expectation, and this is an opinion, not a fact: in a few years, an employer will not only ask "what can you do?" but also "what do you work with?".
But beware: four honest caveats
Paid doesn't automatically mean private. At Claude, conversations from Free, Pro, and Max accounts can be used to train new models if that setting is enabled. You choose this yourself and can always turn it off. So, check your privacy settings, with any service.
Children: mind the age. Claude is only for ages 18 and up. ChatGPT is allowed from 13, with parental consent up to 18. For teenagers, a personal account isn't possible everywhere.
Company data doesn't belong in your personal AI. Employers are concerned about data leaks and privacy when people use their own AI. Take your way of working with you, not your previous employer's client data.
You are dependent on one company. Taking your memory with you is possible, but it doesn't work perfectly yet. Choose wisely, and make an export occasionally.
My advice
Start now, even if you only use it occasionally. The sooner your AI gets to know you, the more you'll benefit from it. And the more you'll take with you to your next job.
