Dictionary entry
proprietary data
Definition of proprietary data
-
: non-public or access-controlled data that an organization or individual can use to train, tune, evaluate, or ground an AI system, often giving it domain knowledge unavailable in unrestricted public datasets
- The legal assistant uses RAG to ground its answers in the firm's proprietary data without placing those documents in the public model.
- Before fine-tuning on proprietary data, the team removed personal information and confirmed that its licenses allowed model training.
Two meanings, one word
In everyday English
Information whose access, use, disclosure, or redistribution is controlled by its owner or rights holder.
In AI
Non-public or access-controlled data that an organization or individual can use to train, tune, evaluate, or ground an AI system, often giving it domain knowledge…
Origin & history
The phrase predates modern artificial intelligence and is documented in United States government procurement records from 1958, where it referred to data subject to restrictions on use or disclosure. In contemporary AI, the term commonly covers controlled organizational data used for training, fine-tuning, evaluation, or retrieval-augmented generation.
Test yourself
Which of these is the meaning of proprietary data?
Cite this entry
"Proprietary data." AI Dictionary, Dadgogo, https://dadgogo.com/dictionary/proprietary-data/. Accessed 5 Oct. 2026.