ChatGPT has 2 types of memory: The “explicit” memory you tell it to remember (sometimes triggers when it thinks you say something important) and the global/project level automated memory that are stored as embeddings.

The explicit memory is what you see in the memory section of the UI and is pretty much injected directly into the system prompt.

The global embeddings memory is accessed via runtime vector search.

Sadly I wish I could disable the embeddings memory and keep the explicit. The lossy nature of embeddings make it hallucinate a bit too much for my liking and GPT-5 seems to have just made it worse.

▲

everybodyknows 3 days ago | parent [-]

How does the "Start New Chat" button modulate or select between the two types of memory you describe?

	▲	vexna a day ago \| parent [-]
		No real modulation or switching occurs. If you start a new chat, your “explicit” memories will pretty much be injected right into the system prompt (I almost think of it as compile time memory). The other memories can sort of thought of as “runtime” memory: your message will be queried against the embeddings of your chat memories and if a strong match is made, the model will use the embedding data it matches against.