Teach Your AI Assistant Your Preferences Once, Then Review What It Remembers

Repeating yourself to an assistant gets old fast. "I'm vegetarian." "Keep emails short." "My week starts on Monday." If you have to say these things in every conversation, the assistant is not saving you much time. Memory fixes that, but only if you treat it like a list you own rather than a black box. Here is a simple way to do it.

Start with three kinds of preferences

Not everything is worth remembering. The useful ones usually fall into three groups:

• Personal facts that rarely change. Dietary needs, the city you live in, the name you like to be called.
• Working style. How long you want answers to be, whether you prefer bullet points, which language to reply in.
• Recurring routines. "I write a weekly report every Friday," or "I plan groceries on Sunday evening."

Say each one plainly, once: "Remember that I don't eat cilantro." Short, specific statements are easier for an assistant to store and easier for you to check later.

Keep sensitive details out of memory

Memory is convenient, so it is tempting to share everything. Don't. Passwords, ID numbers, bank details and health information you wouldn't put in an ordinary note don't belong in an assistant's memory either. If a detail would cause trouble in the wrong hands, keep it somewhere designed to protect it.

Review the list every few weeks

Preferences drift. You change jobs, move cities, or simply stop caring about a rule you set months ago. Every few weeks, open the assistant's memory view and read through what it has stored:

1. Remove anything outdated. An old address or a finished project only adds noise.
2. Fix anything slightly wrong. If it remembered "short emails" but you meant "short emails to clients," correct it.
3. Notice anything surprising. If the assistant stored something you don't remember saying, delete it and be more deliberate next time.

This takes five minutes and keeps the assistant's answers matched to who you are now.

Use memory across devices

Memory is most useful when it follows you. If you set a preference on your phone in the morning, the same assistant on your laptop in the afternoon should already know it. When you choose a tool, check whether its memory and conversations carry over between the devices you actually use.

Where Tikpal fits

Tikpal is one example of an assistant built this way. According to its website, it remembers your preferences, lets you view and remove what it has stored, and continues the same conversation across your phone, Mac and the web. It can also set scheduled reminders and draft calendar events for you to approve. There is an optional Tikpal Voice device if you'd rather hold a button and talk. The app is free to download and includes a free daily allowance.

The short version

Tell your assistant what matters once, keep sensitive data out, and review its memory every few weeks. You get an assistant that knows your habits without losing track of what it knows.