All change for Gmnail

NurPhoto via Getty Images

Google is adding AI features to Gmail faster than its 1.8 billion users can keep up. Smart searches, smart replies, smart summaries. Even accurately mimicking a user’s tone of voice is now a thing. But there’s a new nightmare emerging for Gmail users as AI becomes their inbox gatekeeper. And you need to beware.

“Gmail now wants AI to decide which emails matter before people even scroll through their inboxes,” MarTech reports. “It’s even promising to make getting to Inbox Zero a thing of the past. This is kind of a big deal." And this “big deal” is now going live for ever more Gmail users around the world.

Forbes‘Increasingly Urgent’—Microsoft Issues Password And 2FA WarningBy Zak Doffman

Put very simply, “AI-generated summaries and prioritization could determine which emails actually get seen and which disappear into the background.” That means the marketing spam targeting your inbox will be written for Gemini and not for you. If it can trick the AI review, it can turn up in your feed.

This “AI Overviews era for email” carriers a security threat as well — so-called indirect prompt injection, when hidden messages written for AI tasks the Gemini or other engines with presenting misleading instructions or suggestions.

But while the marketing angle may be softer, it will quickly become more widespread. Marketeers speaking to MarTech suggest this will redefine how they target users. "Context will change the game because AI could theoretically surface a marketing email that seems to be related to their work tasks.”

Forbes‘Not Available For All’—Apple Changes iPhone Messaging Next WeekBy Zak Doffman

With this in mind, marketeers “will have to carefully frame our language in such a way that an agent understands what is high vs. low priority for the email’s reader. We won’t necessarily be able to rely on the right side and left side of the human brain connecting the dots between visuals, headlines, and CTAs.”

All told, that means more marketing tricks and more unwanted emails.

You have been warned.