An indie game developer has raised serious concerns about Google Gemini after the AI revealed unreleased details about an upcoming game update. The developer believes the information could only have come from a private Google Docs file, sparking fresh debate about how AI systems access user data. While Google has denied using private Workspace files to train its AI models, the incident has left many questioning what happened.

The report comes from Klub Kofta Studio, the solo developer behind Operation Octo. According to a post shared on Reddit, everything started when a player in the game’s Discord server began asking Google’s AI search feature (powered by Gemini) random questions about the game, just for fun. While some of the answers were incorrect, the AI also provided surprisingly accurate details that had never been officially announced.

Google AI can pull information that’s supposed to be a secret

Curious about how far it would go, the developer asked the player to question Gemini about future content planned for the game. That’s when things became concerning. The AI responded with the exact name of an unreleased character, “Vantage Tripod,” even though the developer says that name had never been shared publicly.

According to Klub Kofta, the only place where the name existed in digital form was inside a private Google Docs document used for planning future content. They also clarified that the character name wasn’t hidden inside the game’s files, wasn’t uploaded to Steam, wasn’t stored in serialized game data, and had never been entered into Gemini directly. The player who asked the questions was also reportedly using an incognito browser session.

The developer noted that the game’s community only knew a creature informally referred to as “Tripod Fish” after a drawing was shared during a casual online game. However, the official character name, Vantage Tripod, had never been revealed anywhere. They also claimed Gemini accurately referenced other unreleased mechanics that had only recently been written into their development notes.

Google has since responded to the claims. Speaking to Polygon, a representative noted that Google ‘does not scan private content to train its AI’. It is, however, possible to connect Google Workspace apps to Gemini, though this can be disabled and may help avoid a similar game leak issue happening in the future.

• Google does not scan your private Workspace content (which includes Drive and Docs) to train our foundational AI models (including Gemini).
• Links to publicly shared docs may be indexed if someone posted them somewhere publicly, where they could be seen by search engine crawlers.
• Users are in full control over their sharing settings for Drive content (like Docs) — see this resource for detail on how to adjust them.
• More detail on how these privacy settings work can be found here.

Google rep, via Polygon

Google explains that Gemini can access Google Docs only when users explicitly ask it to interact with those documents, such as summarizing or answering questions about them. According to the company, this information is processed temporarily and is not retained for AI training.

At the moment, there is no evidence confirming how Gemini produced the answer. There may be another explanation, such as information being exposed elsewhere without the developer realizing it, or the AI arriving at the answer through other means.

About the Author

Abdul Haddi

Abdul is a tech writer and Editor for PC Guide, specializing in all things tech, gaming, and hardware.