It was inevitable. Google is rolling out new AI functionality on its Gmail service to personal Google accounts. Called AI Inbox, it is designed to “help you manage a busy inbox”, says Google.
What that means? AI is scanning emails to identify the ones that require immediate attention. The feature has its own entry point on Gmail. When you activate AI Inbox, you get two different sections:
- Suggested To-dos: Here, the AI lists incoming emails that need your immediate attention or action. High-priority tasks are identified and the AI explains to you in bold, what you need to do.
- Catch-up Topics: This offers summaries of “important updates across projects and topics”, especially if they are scattered in different email threads or unrelated emails.
Google is limiting the feature currently to English-language users from the United States who are subscribed to Google AI Ultra, which costs 275 Euros per month currently (three month 50 percent introductory offer may be available).
You also need to enable smart features in Gmail to make use of it. Smart Features refers to a bundle of features, including translations, Smart Compose, or personalized search.
The Pros and Cons of letting AI handle your inbox
While there are certain pros to letting AI handle your email inbox, such as saving time, prioritization, or tone and grammar help, there are significant downsides.
Besides privacy and security concerns, there is the risk of missing important emails or of costly mistakes that the AI may make when it starts to hallucinate.
Privacy aside, the best way for users who want to make use of AI to tame their inbox is to use it as a helper, not the ultimate tool on autopilot. This is true for most AI solutions and services nowadays: you always have to verify that the AI did not miss something or introduced something that should not be there or that does not exist in the first place.
Would I use AI Inbox? I would not and the reason could not be simpler: I have no desire to give AI access to my emails because of privacy. Add a medium-sized inbox to that, and I do not have a need for any AI functionality at the time of writing.
I can see AI Inbox as a useful addition in certain cases, for instance, when so many emails arrive in an inbox that humans can’t keep anymore or when someone needs AI because of a packed day and little time to manage emails.
What is your take on this? Would you use AI features on Gmail or your email service? Or do you plant to stay away from them?
After having read the article my answer is the same as if I hadn’t read it:
“Would you use AI features on Gmail or your email service? Or do you plant to stay away from them?”
1- I do not and will never use Gmail.
2- Whatever email service I definitely would not parasite it with AI features. Need I mention especially with Google products?
3- I plan to stay away of any AI interference as opposed to AI assistance if and when I need it and call it explicitly: no AI running in the background. If a service, an application, a software includes AI without an opt-out then I will systemtically avoid it.
AI assistance (not supervision) may come in handy, not to say salutatory, but is it necessary to remind that it may also be incentive to intellectual laziness? Laziness when a brain effort may provide the solutions otherwise proposed by an AI? I’d say, think first and if you really cannot find, especially if you know that what you know is insufficient to find, then only call Mommy AI.
Taking the example of email when it pours like rain, there are settings which allow to organize your incoming emails, to archive them and others in a way that basically reduces your efforts to move around them and find what you need. What I mean is that one calls upon AI assistance to do what an organized consideration driven by your own mind can do, then we’re leading towards a world where basics will be wiped our from individuals’ abilities, like reading the time on an analogical display: yeps, a TV documentary reported that some younger generations were unable to read the time displayed on an analogical device, unable to read the time displayed by Big Ben or an ‘old’ watch … when they rely and have brains suited only for digital displays. If I were to ask AI to create a pic or video it’d be to create one showing Big Ben displaying time in the digital format. Who knows, is that a reality in perspective?
“If I were to ask AI to create a pic or video it’d be to create one showing Big Ben displaying time in the digital format.”
Well, I did!
With Duck.ai: [https://img.justpaste.me/i/20260403/w8c29/DigitalBigBen.jpeg]
With DDG Images: [https://img.justpaste.me/i/20260403/w8cI1/DigitalBigBen2.jpg]
By the way, the one provided by DDG Images search is obviously (not sure of many things in life but here no possible doubt!) AI-generated though found with the option ‘AI Images: hide’. Odd?
@Tom
DDG has no AI.
If you don’t change it, you use ChatGPT. The little button next to send, “GTP-5”, click that, you can change it to “Haiku 4.5”, that’s Claude.
@Tachy, I think there’s a misunderstanding.
> “If you don’t change it, you use ChatGPT. ” : if you don’t change what?
DDG [https://duckduckgo.com/] does have its own AI: duck.ai. which may be used within DDG queries, or not.
NOAI.DDG [https://noai.duckduckgo.com/] blocks all DDG AI assistance with the homepage stating:
“We’ve Turned Off AI‑Assisted Answers – We’ve Removed AI‑Generated Images”
Be it DDG or NOAI.DDG and when searching for images, both include in their navigation toolbar the toggle button ‘AI Images: hide/show’
My surprise was that, ‘AI Images’ being set to ‘hide’ DDG Images nevertheless displayed AI-crafted images, in this case when searching for ‘Digital Big Ben’
I’ll add that my surprise was even greater given I use exclusively NOAI.DDG [https://noai.duckduckgo.com/].
I don’t understand your references to ChatGPT, GPT-5, Haliku 4.5 … in the context of DDG.
@Tom
DDG Does not have it’s own LLM (AI), it uses an API to let you access an LLM of your choice.
The default LLM used by DDG is OpenAI (ChatGPT).
If you go to “https://duck.ai/” you can see the button for the drop down menu that lets you select the model you want to use. The oval button in the bottom right of the input field that shows the current model selected “GTP-5”.
If your avoiding AI as much as possible, your actually going to get more AI generated content slipping through as it is AI that is used to identify it and even they (AI) fail at identifying it often. Catch 22!
I don’t like AI being shoved in my face at every turn either. In reponse I’ve decided to dig deep and learn how they work.
@Tachy (April 5, 2026 at 11:28 pm),
Sorry, nested replies don’t go further than 1 level here so I have to bounce on this previous comment of mine …
I’m aware of duck.ai, I happen to use it and deal with its different LLMs as you mention them. In fact I choose the one which in my experience suits best my topic.
But this has nothing to do with a search on DDG, even if the user has the option to use DDG’s AI assistant. What my first comment referred to was the surprise of searching images for ‘Digital Big Ben’, with DDG’s Image search option set to ‘AI Images: hide’ and moreover DDG accessed via noai.duckduckgo.com. That’s all, nothing related to Duck.ai
“What I mean is that one calls upon AI assistance to do what an organized consideration driven by your own mind can do, then we’re leading towards a world where basics will be wiped out from individuals’ abilities, like reading the time on an analogical display: yeps, a TV documentary reported that some younger generations were unable to read the time displayed on an analogical device, unable to read the time displayed by Big Ben or an ‘old’ watch … when they rely and have brains suited only for digital displays.”
Kids are unable to read analog watches because they had only seen digital phones and clocks before entering schools. It was a pre-AI problem. The same thing is happening with kids not being able to read handwritten text.
” The same thing is happening with kids not being able to read handwritten text.”
My nephew had to have my sister read him what I wrote in a birthday card a couple of years ago. Does a 20 something qualify as a kid?
“AI is scanning emails to identify the ones that require immediate attention.”
Correction: “Google is scanning emails to identify the ones that Google wants you to look at”
Gemini is Google. Check your Android phone, Gemini is just wrapper for the Google app and Google is an ad company first and foremost.
I like Gemini, I play with it all the time, it’s a new game to me, but I’m careful not to feed it anything google doesn’t already know about me, which isn’t much, and that’s intentional.
I am reminded of what Ronald Reagan said about his arms deal with the Soviets; “Trust but verify”. Personally, I wouldn’t even trust, and have no interest in even playing around with AI. The name is a misnomer, as they are not intelligent as the term is generally understood; although they are most certainly artificial.
” Then we’re leading towards a world where basics will be wiped out from individuals’ abilities.”
Think we passed that point many years ago when calculators were introduced into the classroom to help students complete simple arithmetic–“Mathematics education is not merely about performing calculations — it is about cultivating logical thinking and problem-solving skills.”
“Not being able to read handwritten text.”
Nor write fluent, artistic cursive rather than the undecipherable scribble which seems to be a descendant of hand printing–assuming cursive is meant for handwritten.
Use AI to clean out my Inbox–yes, my business Inbox; AI is an underutilized tool for the modern age that saves me extraordinary amounts of time. AI can read all the “garbage” people write and mark the emails that have some sincere, time sensitive questions or answers. The rest? Trash?
What to do with the classified emails? Those are mine and are sent to a confidential email that no one would know.
I use AI all the time to reply to ghastly writing that serves no other purpose than to waste one’s time.
Personal stuff? That’s mine, too.