Definition

Product-level mechanisms where a chat assistant retains or reconstructs information about the user across separate conversations—distinct from a single long context window or a user-managed document corpus.

Source-Backed Model (Gemini)

According to the author’s conversation with Gemini (source):

  • A cloud-synced User Summary aggregates distilled notes from prior chats (“memory fragments”).
  • New sessions receive that summary as part of context so the model can personalize without shipping full raw history across threads.

Contrast With Other Patterns

  • AI Knowledge Bases: Often user-uploaded documents the model retrieves at query time; oriented around your files, not automatic profiling.
  • LLM Knowledge Bases: A maintained markdown wiki the user (and agent) curates explicitly; transparent and portable compared to opaque vendor summaries.

Practical Takeaway

Cross-session summaries can make assistants feel “aware” of stable preferences and projects. They are useful for UX but are not a substitute for explicit, auditable knowledge bases or wikis when you need provenance and control.

Current Evidence In Repo