By checking which people you email frequently and using message content to infer your relationships with them, AI Inbox will identify \u201cVIPs\u201d to help prioritise \u201chigh-stakes\u201d emails such as upcoming bills or appointments.<\/p>\n
Those items then get pushed to the top along with simple \u201cto-do\u201d recommendations based on their contents.<\/p>\n
The tech giant argued email has \u201cchanged considerably\u201d since Gmail launched in 2004 \u2013 what was originally a one gigabyte mailbox is now being positioned as a \u201cpersonal, proactive inbox assistant\u201d that will help its 3 billion users manage an \u201call-time high\u201d in email volumes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re bringing Gmail into the Gemini era,\u201d wrote Google.<\/p>\n
\u201cAI Inbox is like having a personalised briefing, highlighting to-dos and catching you up on what matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Google has kicked off its rollout with a group of \u201ctrusted testers\u201d before expanding to a broader audience in coming months.<\/p>\n
How does it work?<\/b><\/p>\n
In a blog post<\/a> explaining the new feature (which itself had the option for users to read an AI-generated summary instead), AI Inbox was shown sitting at the top of Gmail\u2019s side menu, above the conventional Inbox.<\/p>\n Beta footage<\/a> showed no individual emails in AI Inbox whatsoever \u2013 instead, users were presented with \u201ctopics to catch up on\u201d that summarised \u2018important\u2019 emails in dot-points.<\/p>\n At the top of the inbox was a \u201csuggested to-dos\u201d section with prompts such as \u201creschedule your upcoming dentist appointment\u201d and \u201creply to Coach Mike about field monitor duty\u201d, along with concise summaries of the related emails.<\/p>\n Google has reportedly confirmed users will be able to disable the new AI view, while Gemini\u2019s analysis will be performed securely with the \u201cprivacy protections you expect from Google, keeping your data under your control\u201d.<\/p>\n “As we\u2019ve made very clear: we distinguish between the AI that helps you and the models we build for everyone,\u201d a Google spokesperson told Information Age.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you use Workspace Gemini features, including those in Gmail, we do not use your personal content to train our foundational models.\u201d<\/p>\n Last week, Google also started to roll out free access to its existing \u2018Help Me Write\u2019 tool for drafting and \u201cpolishing\u201d emails, along with \u2018Suggested Replies\u2019 that leverage AI for one-click responses that match users\u2019 writing styles.<\/p>\n AI in search engines, AI in emails<\/b><\/p>\n Google also announced its AI Overviews<\/a> which have taken over Google Search in recent years are being made available in Gmail at no cost.<\/p>\n