Q: Is it safe to send personal or company data to an LLM API?

It depends which door you use, and the difference is bigger than most people think.

Consumer apps (the free ChatGPT website, for example) may use your conversations to train future models unless you opt out. The API is a different door: major providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google) do not train on API data by default, retain it only for a limited abuse-monitoring window, and offer enterprise terms with certifications like SOC 2 and GDPR compliance. That's why companies build products on the API while telling employees to be careful with consumer chatbots.

Note: this is a general overview. Make sure to check the T&C's of each provider separately, as they can change over time.