Google is announcing a new AI Inbox view for Gmail that, instead of presenting your emails in a traditional list, uses AI to offer personalized actions and summaries of the topics you want to follow with your emails.
This is potentially a big change in the way you navigate Gmail, especially if you have a lot to sort or if you (like me) already use your inbox as a to-do list. In a demo video, the AI ​​Inbox suggests tasks like rescheduling a dentist appointment, responding to a coach, and paying a sports tournament fee, and also summarizes topics like a team’s football season and a family gathering.
Google is initially introducing AI Inbox to “trusted testers” in the US using browsers, and it will be available to consumer Gmail accounts first – you can’t use it with Workspace accounts yet. According to Blake Barnes, the company’s vice president of product for Gmail, there’s no way yet to mark that you’ve completed one of the suggested items — this is something Google is working on — meaning Gmail won’t know yet if, for example, you call someone instead of emailing them based on Gmail’s recommended action.
Barnes also says there’s no limit to the number of tasks Gmail can suggest. While AI tries to prioritize what’s important to you based on Inbox signals, like who you email and what things you respond to most quickly, too much work can clutter the Inbox, but with a new design.
Still, given how much of our lives passes through our inboxes, if AI Inbox is somewhat successful in making timely recommendations and summarizing important emails, this feature could be quite useful.
All consumer Gmail users are also getting personalization, AI overview for thread summaries, and suggested replies with Google’s Help Me Write tool — all features Google has previously included with paid plans — at no additional cost. Subscribers to the Google One AI Pro ($19.99 per month) and Ultra ($249.99 per month) plans in the US will get a grammar-like proofread feature, as well as AI overviews in search results, both available in the browser. (An example of the latter is Google “Who was the plumber who gave me a quote for the bathroom renovation last year?”)
If you don’t want to use AI features in Gmail, you can turn them off (though this does disable other smart features like spell checking). The company also says it does not use Gmail content for training its Gemini AI models.
