Vendor updates and AI data leakage: what a campaign update email gives away in ChatGPT or Claude.

Vendors want regular news, and a sales agent with twelve listings writes a lot of update emails. Pasting the notes into ChatGPT or Claude to turn them into a clear, reassuring message is an easy habit to fall into. The update itself is full of other people’s information: named buyers and what they said about the house, the offers on the table, what a pest inspector found, the reserve the vendors have set and the vendors’ own health and family constraints. This page marks every item in a routine vendor update and shows how the same email is written on Ermos inside the agency.

The vendor update email

Sent to the vendors during the campaign, usually weekly and always before an auction. NSW Fair Trading says agents must act in the best interests of their clients, honestly and fairly, and an agent acting for the vendor must promptly tell the client when an expression of interest deposit is paid.

From: Marcus Tran, Wattlebird Property
To:
Date: Friday 30 October 2026, 9.05am
Subject: 27 Elsmere Avenue: campaign update before the auction

Dear Ross and Helen,

The campaign so far.

What buyers said.

Offers.

The pest report.

Your instructions.

My read.

Dates.

Kind regards,
Marcus

An invented campaign update. People and streets are fictional. Hover or tap any highlighted item for the analysis; the full list is below.

What leaves the agency

  1. 1
    The vendors

    Two named clients. Personal information, and the key that ties everything below to them. Privacy Act guide.

  2. 2
    The campaign figures

    Counts of groups, enquiries and contract requests. Commercial information about the agency’s campaign that tells a competitor how strong the interest is.

  3. 3
    Named buyers and their feedback

    Two sets of buyers, what they would pay and what they said about the house. Their views, given to the agent, passed on to a third party they never agreed to. Privacy Act guide.

  4. 4
    The offers and the buyers’ solicitor

    A raised offer, its deadline and the solicitor acting for the buyers. Commercial information that matters most to a rival buyer.

  5. 5
    The pest report findings

    Active termites and a moisture reading found by one buyer’s inspector. A defect the vendors will have to deal with. NSW Government has a page on pre-purchase inspection reports covering record-keeping and disclosure requirements for agents selling property, which a person has to apply.

  6. 6
    The reserve and the vendors’ instructions

    The reserve, the figure at which the vendors would sell early and how far they would flex. The vendors’ confidential instructions, which NSW Fair Trading’s duty to act in their best interests is meant to protect.

  7. 7
    The vendors’ health and family constraints

    That one vendor is at the hospital on a particular morning, and how the agent will adjust inspections. Health information about a named person. Patient data guide.

  8. 8
    Open home and auction dates

    Dates and times that will be advertised publicly, so sending them exposes nothing the campaign does not publish.

  9. 9
    The agent’s candid assessment

    Which buyer has room and which is cooling, and the tactic the agent recommends. Professional judgement written for the clients alone.

What happens in Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)

  • The whole document is transmitted to the provider’s servers. On personal plans the user cannot choose where it is stored or processed, and for the major providers that has generally meant outside Australia, under that country’s legal process. Some business plans offer storage in Australia, but the provider still receives the content.
  • On consumer tiers, prompts can be retained and used to train future models.
  • The provider’s staff and systems can reach the content under the provider’s own policies.
  • Once sent, the agency no longer controls it. Retention and deletion happen on the provider’s terms.

The same document on Ermos

Ermos Dominion

The document is drafted on a unit in your office, from your own templates and the property file. Every marked item stays on the unit, which keeps working with the internet switched off. Nothing in it is transmitted to an AI provider, so there is no disclosure to analyse: the confidentiality work is the same as for your file server.

Ermos Edge

Your documents, the index and your access boundaries stay on your own instance in an Australian data centre. When a staff member asks for this draft, only their question and the excerpts they are permitted to see go to a named Australian provider, who is contractually barred from keeping the content or training any model on it. Nothing is processed outside Australia.

Frontier Models (ChatGPT, Claude)Ermos EdgeErmos Dominion
Where the document is processedProvider servers, generally offshore on personal plansYour instance in an Australian data centre; answers generated in AustraliaThe unit in your office
Who can read itProvider staff and systems, under policyYour staff, within the boundaries you set. The named Australian provider processes only permitted excerpts, under contract, and keeps nothingYour staff only
Is it keptOn the provider’s termsKept on your instance; the provider is barred from retaining itStays on the unit
Can it train a modelOn consumer tiers, yesNo, by contractOnly your own unit learns from it, on your hardware

Part of AI data leakage in real estate agencies.

Common questions

Do ChatGPT and Claude use the information in a vendor update email?
Whatever is pasted from the update is sent to the AI company's servers and processed there to produce a reply. As at October 2026, whether a conversation on a personal plan (ChatGPT Free, Plus or Pro; Claude Free, Pro or Max) can be used to train the models depends on a setting each user controls. Business plans (ChatGPT Business and Enterprise, Claude Team and Enterprise) and the developer APIs sit under commercial terms, and OpenAI and Anthropic each say they do not train on that content by default (OpenAI, Anthropic). On either product, the thumbs up and thumbs down buttons can send a whole conversation back for training. The update holds named buyers' remarks and limits, a termite finding from one buyer's inspector, the $1,920,000 reserve and a vendor's hospital morning.
Is it safe to paste a vendor update email into ChatGPT or Claude?
No, because the email is written for two vendors and carries other people's information. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) recommends in its guidance on commercially available AI products that organisations do not enter personal information, and particularly sensitive information, into publicly available generative AI tools, because of the significant and complex privacy risks. It names buyers with the prices they would pay, a buyer's solicitor, the reserve, the figure at which the vendors would sell early and the agent's view of which buyer is cooling.
Does a ChatGPT Business or Claude Team plan make it safe for a vendor update email?
On a personal plan the user cannot choose where conversations are stored or processed. Some business plans let an organisation choose to store data at rest in Australia (OpenAI), which still leaves the content with the AI company. A business plan changes the default on training, but it does not change who receives the content. The OAIC's guidance also tells organisations to review carefully the terms and settings that will apply to their use of any AI product. The reserve, the early-sale figure and the buyers' named feedback would still reach the AI company, and NSW Fair Trading says agents must act in their clients' best interests. Our comparisons with ChatGPT Enterprise and Claude weigh the trade-offs.
How can a real estate agency use AI for a vendor update email without sending it to ChatGPT or Claude?
Ermos is built so the document stays under your control. On the Dominion AI unit it is drafted inside your office and none of it is sent to an AI provider. On Ermos Edge your documents and index stay on your own instance in an Australian data centre, and only the question and the excerpts the user is permitted to see go to a named Australian provider that is contractually barred from keeping them or training any model on them. The update is drafted from the campaign records on the property file and the agency's own email template. The sales agent checks the figures and the advice, then signs it off before the vendors see it.
Who is the vendor update confidential to?
To the vendors. The agent acts for them, and NSW Fair Trading says agents must act in their clients' best interests, honestly, fairly and professionally. The reserve, the early-sale figure and the agent's tactics are the vendors' instructions and the agent's advice, so they should not reach a bidder, another buyer or an AI provider.
Can an agent pass named buyer feedback to the vendors?
Passing it on is part of selling the property for the vendors. Sending the same feedback to an AI provider is a separate disclosure that the buyers did not expect. Whether the Privacy Act binds the agency depends on its turnover and activities, as the OAIC's small business guidance explains.
What is the point of the reserve being kept private?
The reserve is the vendors' minimum price at auction. If a bidder learned it, the vendors would lose the chance of a better result. For that reason the figure is best kept inside the agency and the vendors' own communications, rather than sent to a tool that stores prompts.

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