Your Gmail inbox is about to get much smarter thanks to a big upgrade from Google.
Google has just held its yearly I/O conference and along with announcing big updates to Android and its Google Photos platform the US technology giant has also confirmed some major changes are coming to Gmail.
When the update launches in the coming months it will make things smarter as well as improving the way we all interact with our inbox.
Perhaps one of the best changes is an update to search. Most of us already have inboxes that are overflowing with messages but Google’s clever Gemini AI – along with a larger side window – should make finding things a lot easier.
At the end of a busy week, you’ll simply be able to ask Google’s smart AI to summarise specific emails with the key points then displayed in an easy-to-view window.
The example Google used on stage during its announcement showed how parents wanting to quickly catch up on what’s been happening at their children’s school can use AI to see a snippet of useful information rather than trudging through endless emails.
The demo showed a user quickly using Google’s Gemini to summarise all recent emails from the school.
It’s pretty clever stuff with this AI able to identify relevant emails, and even analyse attachments, like PDFs.
As a user, you then get a summary of the key points and action items. For example, maybe you were travelling this week and couldn’t make the PTA meeting. The recording of the meeting is an hour long. If it’s from Google Meet, you can ask Gemini to give you the highlights.
“Thanks to the longer context window, Gemini can reference much larger sets of data,” Google explained.
“So if your child’s school sends a flood of emails each month, you’ll be able to use the side panel in Gmail to ask things like, “summarize the emails from Maywood Park Elementary School” and instantly get the most important details and action items.”
You can even ask Google’s AI to quickly reply to messages as well which again speeds up.
These replies are now made much smarter thanks to a feature called “Contextual Smart Reply”.
These are able to make responses feel far more real and less like a robot is typing them out.
Google showed how this will work using a demo which features a proposal for fixing a roof leak. Gemini instant offers a number of responses including one that says you are happy to proceed.
A message is then instantly typed and can be sent with just one click.
“Soon, Gemini in Gmail will offer even more detailed and nuanced suggested replies based on context from your email thread,” Google added. “With Contextual Smart Reply, you can edit or simply send as-is.”
There’s no word on a launch date for these features but expect more news soon.
