Gmail debuts an AI-powered personalized inbox, AI search overviews, and more

Google has unveiled a new AI inbox for Gmail designed to provide a personalized overview of your tasks and keep you informed of important updates. Gmail is also launching an AI Overviews feature in search and a Grammar-like “Proofreading” feature. In addition, Gmail offers all users many AI features that were previously only available to users of paid services.

The new AI Inbox tab has two sections: “Suggested Tasks” and “Topics to Follow.” The first section displays summaries of high-priority emails that require action, such as a reminder that you have a bill due tomorrow or that you need to call your dermatologist to confirm your mailing address so he or she can ship your prescription.

Under the “Topics to Follow” section, you’ll see updates like “Your Lululemon return is being processed, your order of Metal Vent Tech T-shirts has been delivered” and “Your year-end statement is now available from Wealthfront.” These different updates are grouped into different categories, such as “Finance” and “Purchasing.”

“We’re proactively introducing Gmail and supporting you, showing you what you need to do and when you need to do it,” Blake Barnes, Google’s vice president of products, said in a briefing with reporters. “Don’t worry, your traditional inbox will still be available. This is just a new offering that you can toggle in and out of as you please to cut through the inbox noise.”

Google is rolling out the AI ​​Inbox feature to trusted testers before making it more widely available in the coming months.

With the new AI Overviews feature in Gmail search, users can now search their inbox using natural language questions to get a quick answer instead of having to rely on traditional keyword searching and opening multiple emails to find specific information.

For example, you could ask, “Who was the plumber who gave me a quote to renovate my bathroom last year?” You’ll then get an AI overview that pulls the answers from your emails and highlights the key details you need.

“We sift through every email in your inbox and give you the answer to your questions right at the top,” Blake said. “So, just like with the AI ​​Overviews feature in Google Search, you can ask questions in natural language to get an AI-powered response. However, in Gmail, the form relies solely on your email, and your personal memory brain, to generate the response.”

This new functionality is rolling out to Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers.

Google says that all of Gmail’s AI features are optional, that it does not use personal content to train its underlying models, and that it processes personal data in a completely isolated environment.

As for the new proofreading feature, Google says it’s designed to help you polish and improve your writing by analyzing your draft to improve clarity and structure. It offers one-click suggestions for word choice, brevity, active voice, and breaking up complex sentences.

For example, if you type something like “May cause inconvenience,” Gmail will suggest changing it to “May cause inconvenience.” Cases where the wrong word is used, such as “weather” instead of “whether”, will also be flagged. It’s basically similar to popular proofreading services like Grammarly.

By rolling out its own proofreading tool, Google is likely hoping people will stop resorting to third-party tools or plugging their emails into ChatGPT to fix them.

The proofreading service is rolling out to subscribers of the Google AI Pro and Ultra paid subscription tiers.

Although these new features are only being rolled out to select users, Google has announced that Gmail’s Help Me Write service, AI overviews for threaded emails, and Suggested Replies will be rolled out to all users. These features were previously only available to paying subscribers.

The Help Me Write feature can help you compose an email with a single prompt, while the AI ​​Overviews feature for threaded emails provides summaries of longer email threads with multiple responses. Suggested responses use the context of conversations to provide relevant responses that match your tone and style.