Google Introduces an ‘AI Inbox’ Feature in Gmail to Summarize Emails

Google is enhancing its Gmail with even more generative AI tools as part of its mission to further personalize user inboxes and streamline searches. On Thursday, the company unveiled a new “AI Inbox” tab, currently in beta testing, which scans every message in a user’s Gmail and suggests a list of to-dos and key topics based on its summaries. In Google’s illustration of what this AI Inbox could resemble in Gmail, the new tab gathers context from a user’s messages and recommends actions such as rescheduling a dentist appointment, responding to a request from their child’s sports coach, and paying an upcoming fee before the deadline. Additionally, under the AI Inbox tab is a compilation of important topics available for exploration, situated beneath the action items at the top. Each suggested to-do and topic links back to the original email for additional context and verification.

Despite the ongoing proliferation of generative AI features, the reliability of these tools still appears uncertain. Back in 2023, when Google’s chatbot was still referred to as “Bard,” I tested the company’s emerging Gmail extension aimed at summarizing messages and searching the inbox for insights. At that time, this extension was a complete failure, yielding numerous incorrect responses. Since then, Google has focused on improving its foundational AI model, known as Gemini, and has integrated these advancements into its suite of existing software services, including Gmail as well as Search. Even with the company’s progress in AI, current Gmail users still encounter a disclaimer indicating that Gemini “can make mistakes” when attempting to search an inbox and respond to questions.

For users who have concerns about privacy, the information Google collects by reviewing inboxes will not be utilized to enhance the company’s core AI models. “We didn’t just bolt AI onto Gmail,” states Blake Barnes, who leads the project for Google. “We built a secure privacy architecture, specifically for this moment.” He underscores that users can deactivate Gmail’s new AI tools if they prefer not to use them.

Alongside the announcement of its AI Inbox, Google has made multiple Gemini features available for free to all Gmail users, features that were previously accessible only to paying subscribers. This includes the Help Me Write tool, which generates emails based on user prompts, as well as AI Overviews for email threads, which essentially provide a TL;DR summary at the top of extensive message threads.

Subscribers to Google’s Ultra and Pro plans, starting at $20 a month, will gain two additional new features in their Gmail inbox. First, an AI proofreading tool that suggests more refined grammar and sentence structures. Secondly, an AI Overviews tool that can search through the entire inbox and produce relevant summaries on a specific topic, rather than just summarizing a single email thread.