Gmail is adding AI to locate important emails faster
AI seems everywhere now, and Google is adding it to its goods faster than most other companies. Gmail is the latest Google app to get an AI boost and AI locate important emails, which will improve mobile search results.
In a blog post (via Android Central), Google says that when you search in Gmail, machine learning models will use the search term, your most recent emails, and other factors to show you the results that best match your search question.
“These results will now be at the top of the list in a special section, and the rest of the results will be listed in order of when they were added,” the post says. In other words, AI will (in theory) find the best matches for your search and put them at the top of the list.
Years of AI
This is coming to the Gmail apps for Android and iOS, and it should be going out to everyone now. Currently, there is no information about whether or not the same tool will be added to Gmail’s PC web interface.
Gmail has had AI built in for years, and tools like Smart Reply automatically write short answers for you. Google has been pushing more advanced, creative AI as a way to write your emails over the past few months.
More AI features are coming to search on the web, and work on Google Bard, similar to ChatGPT, keeps going steadily. In the coming months and years, more news will be like this.
AI needs to have a purpose.
Currently, Google and other tech companies don’t seem to mind putting out AI features as fast as possible. This is common in a competitive, new field where many players try to get ahead.
But we’re not sure how useful all of this AI will be in the end. Sure, sending text messages in Shakespeare’s way is fun, but wouldn’t most people rather use their own words when talking to friends and family?
Even something like Gmail search isn’t a total win for artificial intelligence. How does the app choose the best results? What are the “relevant factors” it looks at? Can you count on them? Sometimes it seems like the best way to keep track of the thousands of emails taking up space in Gmail is to use the old labels and stars.
In an age where computers are used for everything from recommending movies to writing books, there’s still a lot to be said for human creation and curating, which may take longer but can be much more useful and interesting.
