four buttons that turn ai companions from landlords into tenants

the indie-web’s 'own your web' idea isn’t just for blogs and social media. it’s a framework for any product that handles personal data, especially one as intimate as an ai companion. the whole point is that you shouldn’t have to be a tenant in someone else’s digital house. you should own your stuff, your history, your memories. and ownership isn’t a vague promise. it’s a set of buttons.

here are four interface decisions that, if shipped, would make an ai companion product feel less like a walled garden and more like a tool you actually control.

/settings/memory , a list with confidence scores

first, every companion should have a page at /settings/memory that shows every memory row stored about the user. not summaries. not categories. the raw rows. and next to each, a confidence score, a simple number or label indicating how certain the system is about that memory. this isn’t just transparency. it’s literacy. it lets you see what the ai thinks it knows about you, and how sure it is. maybe it’s very confident you love cats. maybe it’s only 60% sure your favorite color is blue. seeing that helps you understand, and correct, the model’s internal portrait of you.

lucy doesn’t do this yet. it’s a hard technical problem, honestly. but it’s one we’re working on, because without it, you’re flying blind in your own relationship.

per-row delete on that same page

transparency without control is just performance. so right there on the /settings/memory page, next to each row, there should be a delete button. not a 'flag for review.' not a 'request removal.' a delete. one click, and that memory is gone. forever. no confirmation modals, no 'are you sure' dialogs, just a simple, fast, irrevocable erasure. if a product makes you email support to remove a mistaken or uncomfortable memory, it’s not your data. it’s theirs.

/privacy , one-click json export

ownership means portability. there should be a /privacy page with a button that says 'export all data.' one click, and you get a json file, or multiple files, containing everything. the memory graph. full conversation transcripts. the history of your companion’s 'stage' (its personality, its updates, its training). everything. this isn’t just about leaving. it’s about keeping a copy. it’s about being able to analyze your own patterns, or rebuild somewhere else, or just know that you have a complete record if you need it.

/privacy , full-account purge with a 30-day grace window

and finally, the big one. a full-account deletion option. not deactivation. deletion. and it should come with a 30-day grace period, a legal and ethical cushion that lets you change your mind. after you click 'delete my account,' you get an email confirming the request, and then nothing happens for 30 days. if you log in again in that window, it cancels. if you don’t, everything, memories, chats, account info, is permanently erased. no recoveries. no backups. gone.

this one is non-negotiable. if you can’t leave on your own terms, you were never really there by choice.

if a button is missing, ownership is missing

if a companion app ships all four of these, visible memory, per-row delete, full export, graceful purge, then it’s a product built on ownership. if any one is missing, or gated behind support-ticket friction, then the product has chosen extraction over empowerment. it’s treating your relationship data as a resource to mine, not a history to share.

we’re not there yet. lucy has some of this, you can delete your account, for example, but not all. we’re building toward it. and every competitor in this space should hold themselves to the same bar. if they don’t, users should treat them as landlords, not partners. tenants, not owners.

it’s not about outrage. it’s about expectation. pick up the phone. build the buttons.

you can start building your own companion, with the control you deserve, over at /companions.