Google Adds AI driven Gmail Features

Nicely thought out new features for Gmail,  not huge things, but useful if you do lots of email. 

Google Adds AI driven Gmail Features

Jun 14, 2023, 6 min read

These features can make your email experience even faster and more organized.

By Carlos Fernández de Lara, Contributor, The Keyword

Gmail logo surrounded by lines, dashes, circles, squares, rectangles and diamonds — some drawn in gray, while other shapes are filled in with color.

At I/O this year, we announced ways we’re making AI more helpful for everyone. That includes rolling out our new “Help me write” feature in Gmail to users in Workspace Labs to make composing emails easier than ever. But that’s just the latest AI update on the Gmail front. All Gmail users already have access to a host of other AI-powered features — and have, in some cases, for years. “Gmail has a long history of using the power of AI to help users in all aspects of their email journey,” says Chao Wang, a software engineer on the Gmail intelligence team.

Here are six AI-powered features that make Gmail more helpful across a wide range of tasks, from managing incoming mail to helping craft replies.

1. “Help me write”  ...

2. Smart Compose

Smart Compose is great to use when you aren’t looking for help writing an email draft from scratch, but you’d still love some suggestions along the way.

3. Smart Reply

Imagine getting an email from a friend asking if you can make it to their party this Saturday — right before you jump into back-to-back meetings. Now, imagine you can send an answer to your friend in seconds without typing anything.   ... '  (and more) 

Gmail App to Make Voice and Video Calls

 We were very early on testers of Gmail in the enterprise.   Its good, but still has a bumpy ride for new users.   And not enough support for general management of your mail and communications complexity. .   Will this help or will it just further complicate it?

The Gmail app will soon make voice and video calls

Gmail is quickly becoming Google's do-it-all app.

Jon Fingas

@jonfingas, September 8th, 2021

Google is keen to make Gmail your go-to hub for more than just messages. As The Verge noted, Google is rolling out a larger Workspace update (more on that shortly) that will add direct calling via Google Meet to the Gmail mobile app. You'll get to ring up your coworkers and other contacts for a quick one-on-one when email or a scheduled meeting won't do. The feature will also send a "chip" to your computer if you'd rather answer on the larger screen.

The company has pitched the feature as a rough equivalent to "spontaneous" office chats in a hybrid work environment where some staff are at home. And before you ask — yes, the Meet app will eventually add this calling feature as well.  .. '

GMail Morphs Again

Been a user of GMail since our megacompany included it as an option in the very beginning.  It has continued to morph in ways that were often disturbing and less than useful.   Now its changing again.  Hoping for more logic and usefulness to keep the email madness in check.    My observation is that its gotten worse in the pandemic, which has everyone looking for attention.  SIMPLIFY, please.

New settings for smart features and personalization in Gmail   from Google

Product Manager

People have come to expect a lot from their email. But whether you’re an inbox zero master or a never-archiver, you want your email experience to be easy and secure. Since 2004, many have grown to love Gmail for its time-saving and security features. From assistive writing capabilities to high priority notifications to blocking more than 99.9 percent of spam, phishing and malware from reaching your inbox, we built Gmail to make communication less of a chore.

In the same way, people have come to expect easier control of their data—and here too, we’ve been on a mission to take the work out of managing your privacy. That’s why our engineers at the Google Safety Engineering Center in Europe developed Privacy Checkup as an easy way to review key settings and see (and delete) the data that Google collects to provide you with helpful experiences. And it’s why we introduced auto-delete as the default this year to make control over your data even more automatic.   ,, ,"

Revamped GMail to Compete

Used GMail since we tested it in the enterprise.   Later because we collaborated with universities who got it for free.    Always liked it, and the following GSuite, but its design was always a bit quirkily  'academic' as well, making you need to do things in sometimes illogical ways.   Our enterprise went full Microsoft soon afterwards, but it was OK to keep the Google connections as needed.  Will advances in GMail help this?   Notable the look at MS Teams, which is not in considerable use.

A revamped Gmail could bolster interest in G Suite as it looks to take on rivals like Microsoft, Slack and others.  By Matthew Finnegan in Computerworld

Google has unveiled a revamped Gmail that will serve as a hub for collaboration with access to video, chat and shared files available directly from the email client. It’s a move designed to bring Google into closer competition with Microsoft Teams, according to one analyst, as well boosting its position against newcomers.

Google has moved in recent months to integrate its various G Suite apps with Gmail, with its Meet video and Chat team messaging applications gradually being melded with the email client. Indeed, despite expectations in some quarters that team chat will kill email, Google has long seen Gmail as the natural home for collaboration in its portfolio. ... "

E-Mail Productivity

Nicely done short look at how to be more productive with too much e-mail.  Tips, tricks and more ... brief too.   In the enterprise, my most read posts were about email productivity.

The Suite Life: 4 tips for a more manageable Gmail inbox

Laura Mae Martin  in the Google Blog
Executive Productivity Advisor

The average person receives 120 emails a day, which means keeping your inbox under control can feel like an impossible task. Fortunately, G Suite gives you the tools you need to stay focused and organized. Welcome to the Gmail edition of The Suite Life, a series that brings you tips and tricks to get the most out of G Suite. In this post, we’ll provide advice to help you save time and get more done—right from your Gmail inbox.  .... "

Dynamic Gmail to be Available July 2

Dynamic Email announced:

Gmail’s ‘dynamic email’ will be available to everyone July 2nd.
RSVP to an event or fill out a survey without leaving your inbox.
 Amrita Khalid, @askhalid in Engadget  ... "

Take action and stay up-to-date with dynamic email in Gmail
 Product Manager, Gmail
 Published Mar 26, 2019

Over the past decade, our web experiences have changed enormously—evolving from static flat content to interactive apps. Yet email has largely stayed the same with static messages that eventually go out of date, or are merely a springboard to accomplish a more complex task. If you want to take action, you usually have to click on a link, open a new tab and visit another website.

Starting today, we’re making emails more useful and interactive in Gmail. Your emails can stay up to date so you’re always seeing the freshest information, like the latest comment threads and recommended jobs. With dynamic email, you can easily take action directly from within the message itself, like RSVP to an event, fill out a questionnaire, browse a catalog or respond to a comment.

Take commenting in Google Docs, for example. Instead of receiving individual email notifications when someone mentions you in a comment, now, you’ll see an up-to-date thread in Gmail where you can easily reply or resolve the comment, right from within the message.  ... " 

Is the Future Tailored Chat?

Its already chat, but its a form of sloppy chat with only minimal help. 

Is the Future Chat?
Google sees Gmail as key to its collaboration plans
‘We are not going to live in a world where everyone abandons email and moves all of their communication to chat,’ says Google’s Jacob Bank, director of product management at G Suite.
         
 By Matthew Finnegan  ... in Computerworld

Gmail Functions will Soon Stop in IFTTT

This is very unfortunate, most of the functionality I used  in IFTTT sensed Gmail.   Apparently for security reasons?   It shows you how you cannot rely on other architectures in such systems.   Will follow to see if anything can be fixed, or other services can be used.  Will this seriously damage the IFTTT method?

Most IFTTT applets using Gmail will break this month   By Corbin Davenport

IFTTT is an extremely powerful automation tool that combines hundreds of different online services. You can make your Hue lights flash when your phone gets a notification, save your liked YouTube videos to a Google Sheets document, and much more. However, if you make heavy use of the Gmail service in IFTTT, you might have some adjusting to do.

In October of last year, Google made a series of changes to the Gmail API, in response to criticism it received about data access from third-party apps. New restrictions were enforced on applications using Gmail data, and some had to undergo security assessments.  .... "

Project Management: Asana and Gmail

Was pointed to Asana as a good system for project management when using Gmail

" ... Asana lets teams track projects from start to finish so everyone knows who is doing what and by which deadline and its current status. Teams that are already using Asana, including Airbnb, General Electric and Nasa can now receive an email, turn it into a task, assign it to a team member, set a due date and track an activity without toggling between email and Asana.  .... " 

More Gmail productivity Add-ons ...

IFTTT for Google Drive

I continue to watch the updates to IFTTT (IF This, Then That).  Which allows you to add rule like commands to examine streams of data and manipulate them.  They have just added a number of capabilities which let you work with Google business resources like GDrive and Gmail.   Its also an easy way get acquainted with the concept, and how IFTTT Applets can help.   Easy to set up:

Here is the latest

Google Drive
Google Drive lets you store and access your files anywhere — on the web, on your hard drive, or on the go. Applets let you send the most important information into your Google Drive, automatically. ....

Just testing now.

Google's Gmail will Answer Your Emails?

What is Ray Kurzweil up to at Google?  Writing your Emails.  ... in Wired ..  I respond:

Interesting background and information about an innovator and his team's neural net driven AI project.  Good as an indication of how Google works internally with innovative ideas.  Worth readng for that.  Kurzweil is very well known, innovative and very smart.

But here is a case where I have been actually 'using' the results of his team's work since it was made public on Google Mail in May.   I would say I use one of his auto answers or 'Smart Replies'  maybe one out of twenty times.  Then worry that the recipient might notice.   Have never edited an answer, but understood that I could.  Just easier to write the whole thing.

  And must say that I am not overly impressed.  This could have been done better with a lot less resources and effort.  I would not pay for this if I had to, not even close.   Is trite a good word?   Not what I expected when I heard it called  'automatic answering'.   The latter is really hard, at least to do well.   I would have to read it very closely to see if it is correct.  If its not that important, why answer at all?    More and better is coming they say, I hope so.   My singularity receptacle is waiting. But you will have to catch me.

Google to Stop Reading Your Email for Targeting

Somewhat surprised at this.  Probably the most obvious thing, after search,  that Google does that is the base of much of its considerable revenue.  It has been often criticized.  At the same time so much indicative data has been gathered on us by now, and other behavior, like search is still being tracked to note and maintain our knowledge graphs.   May be no additional value to continue to do it.  Or perhaps Google has discovered it can infer it from its AI?

Google Will Stop Reading Your Email to Target Ads  In Extremetech
One of Google’s most controversial practices over the years has been the automated scanning of email contents. Google used that data to target ads inside Gmail, which it places at the top of the list in your social and promotions tabs. Google now says it will end the practice of targeting ads based on email text, but the decision was not made by the Gmail or advertising teams. It comes from Google’s cloud unit, which is responsible for selling G Suite business subscriptions. ....  " 

Also from Adage.

Google Catching GMail SPAM

In Wired: Spam does seem like a far less common occurrence these days.   Using neural methods. Now can we address other forms of malware?

" ... Three years after it last released Gmail’s spam stats, Google says that its spam rate is down to 0.1 percent, and its false positive rate has dipped to 0.05 percent. The company credits the significant drop in large part to the introduction of brain-like “neural networks” into its spam filters that can learn to recognize junk mail and phishing messages by analyzing scads off the stuff across an enormous collection of computers. ... "

Using GMail for Business

A lengthy look at GMail, which I used during early tests in the enterprise.  It is a good system I have grown to be accustomed to, it does not solve the basic email problem.  Too much, too chaotic, and hard to turn into a knowledge base to improve understanding your business,

Gmail's New Tabbed Layout and Advertising

Was wondering how Gmail's new tabbed layout, which uses an  algorithm to separate primary and promotional email, might affect email advertising?  I like the prefabricated categorization.  But will this effectively allow me to ignore promotional emails?   Adage suggests is won't be a problem for Email advertising, but I still have my doubts.

Gmail Meter

I used Google's Gmail Meter for the first time today.  If you use Gmail for significant quantities  of mail, it is an excellent way to understand your email uses.  It creates a standard business intelligence report and mails it to you.  It also creates a spreadsheet of your data, so you can create your own tailored report.  Been looking for something like this for some time.   Nicely done.

I am Available

Every now and then I pop in here to remind people that I am a consultant.  I get many queries from my writing in this blog.   I have just had two large projects end, so I am indicating the availability of my time in the coming months.  I have over thirty years of experience with Procter & Gamble and a number of other companies, from government to big enterprise to startups.  What I do is now broadly called business analytics, and includes many data centric and modeling methodologies.    I am always innovation aware.    More about me in the left hand column and on LinkedIn.  Want to chat a project or collaboration?  Contact me at franzdill@gmail.com

Linkedin Acquires Rapportive

Have used Rapportive for years.  If you have many contacts it usefully provides information about them on a right hand column in GMail.   It makes sense that they have now been acquired by Linkedin to get even more information about a contact.

A Fix For E-Mail: Fluent

I agree that EMail is becoming increasingly hard to deal with.  Too much, too messy, and hard to deal with as an efficient means to store knowledge.   These former Google employees  claim to have a solution:  Fluent.  It will work with your current GMail account.  Have not tried it yet.

Why These Ads?

From E-Commerce Times:  Why these ads?   I often ask that question.  " ... Google's latest tool, dubbed "Why These Ads," is designed to give users insight on exactly that -- why they see the advertisements they see in their Google searches and Gmail communications. It's also introduced a new Ads Preference Manager. The move may be a win for transparency, but it's still left critics wanting in the category of privacy.... "