Why this is coming up now
Over the past day, one of the busier AI conversations on X was about using a different assistant for different jobs: one for hard work, another for quick questions, and side-by-side tests to decide which handles what. The catch people keep running into is that each assistant only knows what you've told it, so switching means explaining yourself again.
Claude is the only one with a built-in import
Anthropic's help center describes a memory import on every Claude plan, including Free, on the web and Claude Desktop. You run a prompt Anthropic provides in your current chatbot, paste the result into Settings > Memory > Start import, and click Add to memory. Claude then stores it as separate entries you can review.
Anthropic is open about the limits: imports are experimental, and Claude's memory focuses on work topics, so personal details may not stick. To get your memory out of Claude, the dependable route is to ask Claude to write out its memories verbatim and save that text. Claude's help page points to different settings screens for viewing memory in different sections, so we don't rely on a menu path.
ChatGPT and Grok: custom instructions are the route
OpenAI's help center says ChatGPT's memory controls are under Settings > Personalization > Memory, and that you can ask ChatGPT what it remembers about you, though the memory summary doesn't necessarily include every detail. Custom instructions, set under Settings > Personalization (Customize ChatGPT on mobile), apply to all chats. OpenAI's full data export can take up to 7 days, and its account-transfer guide says uploading exported conversations doesn't move memories or custom instructions.
xAI's Grok page lists memory across chats and custom instructions as features but doesn't say where they sit in the app. We didn't find an import flow for either ChatGPT or Grok on their official pages, so pasting a short summary into custom instructions (in Grok, its custom instructions or personalization settings) is the dependable option.
What we couldn't confirm
We couldn't check whether a chatbot's export really lists everything it remembers; Anthropic's prompt asks it to say whether the list is complete for that reason. OpenAI's help center says the ChatGPT export ZIP includes chat history and other relevant account data, but doesn't say whether saved memories are in it. xAI doesn't publish menu-level steps for Grok's memory or custom instructions, so we don't name Grok menu labels.
Keep one copy you own
The most portable option is a plain about-me file on your own computer: a full version for Claude's import and a short version for custom instructions. Our new playbook walks through it, with an interview-style prompt for every chat step.
Open the playbook: move your AI memory and keep a copy you own