Overwhelmed by Your Email Inbox? New Gmail AI Will Summarize Messages for You

Google is going all in on AI, and Gmail is no exception. At the Google I/O event Tuesday, the company presented the latest changes to its popular email software. Using Google's AI assistant Gemini 1.5 Pro, Gmail will soon make reading and replying to emails more efficient and convenient.

Gemini is the AI-based assistant from Google, built right into Gmail, Docs, Sheets and more. Gmail users can already use Gemini to help them write emails based on their prompts. For instance, you can use it to write a cover letter, create birthday invitations and write a more detailed email. 

Watch this: Everything Google Just Announced at I/O 2024

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We'll explain what the new features are and when you can expect to use them. For more, read about how Google Photos is getting Gemini AI search with 'Ask Photos.'

1. Summarize this email

With Gemini 1.5 Pro, when there's an email thread you don't have time to read, you can tap the "summarize this email" button to get a summary card with highlights of the email or email thread.

2. Enter a prompt here 

In the summary card, you can type questions and have Gemini search your email and attachments for an answer. The example Google's Vice President of Workspace Aparna Pappu showed was "compare my roof repair bids by price and availability." The new Q&A feature makes it easier to get quick answers for anything in your inbox.

Gemini will also be able to pull information from different email threads and combine them in an organized summary.

3. Suggested replies

When you're ready to reply to an email, Gemini will give you a few suggestions to choose from, based on the context of the previous emails. For each suggestion, you can see a long preview of the reply email by long-pressing on the tab.

When will the new features roll out?

Google said the new Gmail features will roll out this month to Labs users to test and the Gemini for Workspace side panel will be widely available in June.

For more, Google's Gemini will bring Richer image descriptions to TalkBack screen reader.

Editors' note: CNET is using an AI engine to help create a handful of stories. Reviews of AI products like this, just like CNET's other hands-on reviews, are written by our human team of in-house experts. For more, see CNET's AI policy and how we test AI.