Google Is Adding an 'AI Inbox' To Gmail That Summarizes Emails
- Reference: 0180550501
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/01/08/2212216/google-is-adding-an-ai-inbox-to-gmail-that-summarizes-emails
- Source link:
> Google is putting even more generative AI tools into Gmail as part of its goal to further personalize user inboxes and streamline searches. On Thursday, the company [1]announced a new "AI Inbox" tab, currently in a beta testing phase, that [2]reads every message in a user's Gmail and suggests a list of to-dos and key topics , based on what it summarizes. In Google's example of what this AI Inbox could look like in Gmail, the new tab takes context from a user's messages and suggests they reschedule their dentist appointment, reply to a request from their child's sports coach, and pay an upcoming fee before the deadline. Also under the AI Inbox tab is a list of important topics worth browsing, nestled beneath the action items at the top. Each suggested to-do and topic links back to the original email for more context and for verification.
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> [...] For users who are concerned about their privacy, the information Google gleans by skimming through inboxes will not be used to improve the company's foundational AI models. "We didn't just bolt AI onto Gmail," says Blake Barnes, who leads the project for Google. "We built a secure privacy architecture, specifically for this moment." He emphasizes that users can turn off Gmail's new AI tools if they don't want them. At the same time Google announced its AI Inbox, the company made free for all Gmail users multiple Gemini features that were previously available only to paying subscribers. This includes the [3]Help Me Write tool , which generates emails from a user prompt, as well as AI Overviews for email threads, which essentially posts a TL;DR summary at the top of long message threads. Subscribers to Google's Ultra and Pro plans, which start at $20 a month, get two additional new features in their Gmail inbox. First, an AI proofreading tool that suggests more polished grammar and sentence structures. And second, an AI Overviews tool that can search your whole inbox and create relevant summaries on a topic, rather than just summarizing a single email thread.
[1] https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/gmail/gmail-is-entering-the-gemini-era/
[2] https://www.wired.com/story/google-ai-inbox-gmail/
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRkCkKhO-3k
Alternative email scheme (Score:2)
1. Get ProtonMail with ProtonPass
2. Create a unique email address for every online service to uniquely identify who spams you, sells or leaks your data.
3. Create a gmail account just for your phone.
4. Set up forwarding from Pass aliases to your phone gmail only for those services which you strictly need to use on your phone.
5. Live a happy, AI-free, private and undisturbed life on the go. Deal with life admin on a desktop in purposefully allocated time.
Re: (Score:2)
Another alternative that's a lot more work to set up, but much more flexible in the end, is to self-host your email. I've been doing that since about 2001.
My IMAP server is about 2m behind me (it's a Raspberry Pi 4 with two USB drives in RAID-1 configuration to hold the mail, etc.)
Steady as she goes (Score:2)
Gmail already offers an AI summary at the top of a message when you open it.
It will also offer a translation, if the message is in a different language.
If I were Google I'd want to be careful about implementing solutions to existing problems, rather than adding solutions where no problems exist. I already get suggestions about paying bills when the bill will be paid automatically, and most of the "nudges" I see are not necessary...
Re: (Score:1)
The goal of all these suggestion/notification/alert shit isn't to help you. It's to help the engineers that designed it. They are very driven by metrics. They need to show x numbers of "impressions" in y amount of time. The more of them they blast in your face whether you want them or not, the better their metrics and the more likely they are to get promoted. The user experience no longer matters.
Re: (Score:3)
> The goal of all these suggestion/notification/alert shit isn't to help you. It's to help the engineers that designed it. They are very driven by metrics. They need to show x numbers of "impressions" in y amount of time. The more of them they blast in your face whether you want them or not, the better their metrics and the more likely they are to get promoted. The user experience no longer matters.
In practice, in any organisation, including Google, there will be a tension between the commercial side of the business and the programmers (and others, who genuinely want to produce something good). I understand the pessimism I sense in your comment, but I think it would be more accurate to describe it as a pressure, rather than a done deal. Metrics are notoriously difficult to apply to software development, and despite the best efforts of management, smart developers will often reroute, subvert or ignore.
Re: (Score:3)
I've extensively [1]de-Googled my life [skoll.ca] as far as email/calendar/contacts go.
I've always used Android phones, but my next one will either be open-source Android, or not Android at all.
[1] https://dianne.skoll.ca/writings/de-googling-my-life/
Waste of compute time. (Score:2)
That's all.
Genuine waste of space (Score:2)
I have this on my phone... I have an email thread to with my wife entitled "Groceries" and we reply back and forth throughout the week adding things: Tortillas, cheese, yogurt, hot dog buns, diet coke, etc... Google took up half screen to announce AI SUMMARY: This is a list of groceries. Thanks moron. How about giving me my screen real estate back so I can READ the list of groceries?
There is a role for AI in email (Score:2)
An AI that accurately categorized my incoming emails into "important", "worth reading", and "not worth reading" would be a welcome development. Gmail is currently one of my least-favorite tower-defense games.
I use a mail client and IMAP... (Score:2)
Hoping to escape this for as long as possible.
Gobs of data. (Score:2)
TFA mentions:
> When you have a Gmail account that’s over a decade old, like I do, there are gobs of data sitting there, ready to be sifted through.
But is that really the case?
For example, I've had a GMail account for a *long* time, but have always used Thunderbird (and, I think, Eudora before that, with a different ISP) and have always downloaded all my mail to my local system - first using POP3 and now IMAP - and don't keep any messages on their servers. Sure, they could have scanned them when they arrived, but unless they're keeping all the deleted email, it's all gone now and new messages don't hang around long. I even clear out
Honestly (Score:2)
The only time they're going to get me to pay is to remove these "features".
Re: Honestly (Score:2)
Wait no I take that back. Don't get any ideas about me paying!
Re: (Score:1)
No shit. Nobody wants this.
Re: (Score:2)
Ever notice how every damn company has some sort of summarization feature? Sure, I guess that’s what LLMs know best. Something about hammers and nails comes to mind.
Who cares?