Gmail on smartphones is getting better AI integration with Gemini

By Wes Davis, a weekend editor who covers the latest in tech and entertainment. He has written news, reviews, and more as a tech journalist since 2020.
Google is preparing to bring Gemini to one place it’s sorely needed: the Gmail app on smartphones. The company announced at its I/O developer conference today that, starting next month, Workspace and Google One AI Premium subscribers will be able to use Gemini to summarize emails for them inside the Gmail app. Google says that later, users will be able to access Gemini from Gmail both in the app and on the web to ask questions about their emails or have it compose replies based on the email’s context.
The reply suggestions, called “Contextual Smart Reply,” will work like the current Smart Reply feature, just more “detailed and nuanced.” Other features will be available through a new Gemini button in the Gmail app. Google says tapping the button will pull up suggestions like “summarize this email” or “suggest a reply.” Users can type a prompt to ask about emails, too.
In an onstage demo during the conference, Google’s Aparna Pappu said Gemini doesn’t just get the context from the email you’re replying to, but for the whole thread leading up to it, too. As shown in the screenshot above, Gemini will offer multiple suggested responses for you to choose from. It might not be the best way to respond to a heartfelt message from a loved one, but it could be ideal for something like the roofing quote example she used.
These are all things you can generally do already in other ways — from the Google app, for example, you can ask about your emails, and the Workspace Labs testers can use prompt-based AI-generated replies in the Gmail app. But there’s no question that having deeper Gemini functionality right in the cramped environment of the Gmail app on a smartphone would be handy, especially if you’re a professional who fields dozens of emails a day.
The Gmail app announcement is one part of a much larger push from Google to deeply integrate Gemini into, well, all of its software and hardware. That includes Gemini living in a new sidepanel in Workspace or using image interpretation to add things to Calendar and Keep.
People who want to test out the summaries feature in the app will be able to do so starting this month before its later rollout. Contextual Smart Reply and Gmail Q&A will come as experimental Workspace Labs features in July. Google hasn’t offered a clear timeline for their official release, though.
Update May 14th: Added more context.
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