Gmail users on Android devices can now chat about emails with Google's AI assistant, Gemini, directly within the Gmail app, according to a blog post Google on Thursday rolled out the new feature, “Gmail Q&A,” to paid Gemini users, and announced that the feature will also be coming to iOS devices, according to a blog post.
Gmail Q&A gives users access to Google Gemini in the Gmail app, a personal assistant that can read your entire email inbox. According to Google, you can ask Gemini to summarize emails for you by asking things like, “Summarize emails about quarterly planning.” You can also use the feature to look up specific details, such as asking Gemini, “How much did the company spend on the last marketing event?”
Of course, if you use this feature, you'll have to endure the occasional hallucination that plagues even the best AI models, so it's best not to trust everything it tells you.
Traditionally, if you wanted to find something in Gmail, you could use the search bar at the top of Google. That's not going away, but a Gemini button will be added next to the search bar. This is all part of Google's paradigm shift from search to AI chat. Instead of finding the original email through search, Gmail is now prompting users to have an AI chatbot summarize the information they're looking for, but citing the original email in the answer.
Paid users can access the feature by clicking on the black star logo in the top right corner of the app, which has come to represent Gemini across Google's suite of products. For now, Gmail's Q&A feature only has access to emails, but in the future, Google says it will connect to files in your Drive account as well.
Gmail Q&A rolled out in June to Gmail web users who pay for Gemini or Google One AI Premium, paying about $20 a month for such AI features that are part of Google's Gemini-centric tier of products and applications.
Gmail Q&A is unlikely to be available to free Gmail users anytime soon. Instead, Google is pushing features like Gmail Q&A to convince users that the expensive Gemini monthly subscription fee is worth it. The company is also adding Gemini to all of its existing products, including Google Docs, Gmail, and Google Calendar, all of which come at a cost. So far, these AI products are Google's best bet to generate revenue from Gemini.