Zero data retention (ZDR)

Zero data retention means the provider processes a request and keeps nothing afterward: no stored prompts, no outputs, nothing for human review or training. Providers offer it on qualifying API and enterprise arrangements — often as the prerequisite for regulated workloads like PHI under a BAA.

ZDR is an inference-time promise with scope details worth reading: some features (abuse monitoring, tool use) may be excluded, and it applies to the covered endpoints only. It also does nothing about the copy of the prompt in the user's local history — retention has two ends.