Should magicians tell AI their secrets?
The short answer: not the methods. Here's what the big AI tools do with what you type, where the real risk sits, and how to use them without handing over your material.
Table of contents
AI is good at a lot of what a working magician needs: patter drafts, show orders, contracts, and emails to bookers. It's also the first notebook in history that may learn from what you write in it. For most people that's a privacy footnote. For a craft built on secrets, it's the whole question.
Why AI is bad at magic, for now.
Magic methods aren't generally available to the public. They live in books, lectures, and conversations between magicians. Large language models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude learn from what they can read, so they have very little to pull from. Ask one how a marketed effect works and you mostly get confident guesses.
That gap is the magician's code, working at scale.
What happens to what you type.
Each of the big 3 publishes its own rules. As of September 2026:
- ChatGPT. OpenAI says ChatGPT improves by training on the conversations people have with it unless you opt out, using a setting called Improve the model for everyone. Temporary Chats are not used for training. OpenAI's data policy.
- Gemini. Google says your conversations help improve its services, including its machine-learning models, and that human reviewers read some of them. Reviewed chats are kept for up to 3 years, even if you delete your activity. Google itself tells you not to enter confidential information. Gemini Apps Privacy Hub.
- Claude. Anthropic asks you to choose. If you allow it, your chats can be used to improve Claude and are kept for up to 5 years. If you don't, they're kept for 30 days. Anthropic's consumer terms update.
OpenAI and Anthropic both say their business and API products aren't used for training by default. The free and personal plans, the ones most magicians use, are the ones that can learn from you.
As of September 2026
ChatGPTOpenAI
Trains on your chats by default
Yes
Unless you opt out.
The setting that turns it off
Improve the model for everyone
Temporary Chats are not used for training.
Human review
Not stated here
Retention
Not stated here
GeminiGoogle
Trains on your chats by default
Yes
Conversations help improve its services, including its machine-learning models.
The setting that turns it off
Not stated here
Human review
Yes
Human reviewers read some conversations.
Retention
Up to 3 years
For reviewed chats, even if you delete your activity.
Google's own page tells you not to enter confidential information.
Not stated here means this guide has no answer from them on it. That is not the same as a no.
Settings change, and training isn't the only leak.
Those are today's settings. Policies change, defaults change, and a switch you set once doesn't follow you to a new account or a new app. Anthropic's current rule arrived in 2025 as an update to its terms.
Training also isn't the only way a chat gets out. In July 2025, thousands of shared ChatGPT conversations turned up in Google search results, because a sharing option made them discoverable. OpenAI called it a short-lived experiment and removed it. Search Engine Journal has the details.
And what a model learns, it may repeat to whoever asks next.
A working rule.
Tell AI about the show. Never about the method.
- Patter and scripting, described by what the audience sees.
- Show orders, pacing, and set lists.
- Marketing copy, booking emails, contracts, and invoices.
- Learning theory: practice schedules, memory, and stage fright.
Keep out how an effect is done, how a prop is built, and anything from a book, a lecture, or a download you paid for. That last one is someone else's secret as well as yours.
The test is simple. If you wouldn't post it on a public forum, don't type it into a chatbot.
The test
If you wouldn't post it on a public forum, don't type it into a chatbot.
Tell AI about the show.
- Patter and scripting, described by what the audience sees.
- Show orders, pacing, and set lists.
- Marketing copy, booking emails, contracts, and invoices.
- Learning theory: practice schedules, memory, and stage fright.
Never about the method.
- How an effect is done.
- How a prop is built.
- Anything from a book, a lecture, or a download you paid for.
That last one is someone else's secret as well as yours.
Where your secrets should live.
Methods, handling notes, and rehearsal footage belong somewhere that can't read them. Paper works. So does software that encrypts on your device before anything is uploaded, so the company running it has nothing to read, nothing to train on, and nothing to leak.
That's how Trickifi is built. Your repertoire is end-to-end encrypted, so no one, including Trickifi staff, can access it, and none of it is used to train AI. See how Trickifi keeps accounts secure.
Where a note can sit
Methods, handling notes, and rehearsal footage belong somewhere that can't read them.
A chat window
What you write
- Methods
- Handling notes
- Rehearsal footage
Your own words
sent as written
What the server holds
- Methods
- Handling notes
- Rehearsal footage
The same words
It arrives readable. It may be used to improve a model, and some conversations are read by people.
An encrypted vault
What you write
- Methods
- Handling notes
- Rehearsal footage
Your own words
encrypted on your device
What the server holds
Ciphertext
It is encrypted before anything is uploaded, so the company running it has nothing to read, nothing to train on, and nothing to leak.
Paper works for the same reason. It has never read anything either.
Keep reading.
Keep it all in one place
Trickifi is the practice and repertoire app for magicians, encrypted on your device so your secrets stay yours.