Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Gmail on smartphones now automatically offers AI-generated summaries for some emails.
- Google says this applies to situations like long email threads and messages with several replies.
- The feature is available today for Gmail on Android and iOS.
Google has been on a quest to bring generative AI to many of its apps and services, and Gmail is no exception. The company currently offers AI tools like writing assistance and summaries, and it’s now making the latter feature more prominent.
Google revealed on its Workspace Updates blog that AI-generated summaries will now automatically show at the top of some emails in Gmail for Android and iOS. Previously, you’d need to tap the “summarize this email” button in the app to generate a summary.
These summaries would be displayed in emails where a summary is deemed helpful. The company specifically gives examples like longer email threads or messages with several replies.
“Gemini will synthesize all the key points from the email thread and any replies thereafter will also be a part of the synopsis, keeping all summaries up to date,” Google explains.
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Google says this feature is available today in English, although it might take up to 15 days to see it. The company adds that you can still manually trigger AI-generated summaries for emails by tapping the “summarize this email” button. That’s useful if the automatic summary hasn’t kicked in for your desired message or thread.
These automatic summaries should be helpful for many people, although the scattershot nature of generative AI means you should still check the entirety of more important email threads. Don’t care for these summaries? You can disable them by disabling Gemini integration in Gmail, but you do lose out on other Gemini features (e.g. the Gemini chatbot) by doing this.
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