{"id":223464,"date":"2026-01-08T16:05:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T16:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/223464\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T16:05:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T16:05:12","slug":"gmail-is-getting-a-gemini-ai-overhaul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/223464\/","title":{"rendered":"Gmail is getting a Gemini AI overhaul"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">In a move that should surprise nobody, Google is stuffing more Gemini AI into Gmail. A host of new features, some of which are already <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/apps\/personalized-ai-powered-smart-replies-are-coming-to-gmail-172422777.html\" data-i13n=\"cpos:1;pos:1\" data-ylk=\"slk:familiar to Workspace users;cpos:1;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">familiar to Workspace users<\/a>, are rolling out today for Gmail users in the US. Some are free, while others require a <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/ai\/google-wants-250-per-month-in-return-for-its-new-ai-ultra-plan-180248513.html\" data-i13n=\"slk:Google AI Pro or Ultra subscription;cpos:2;pos:1\" data-ylk=\"slk:Google AI Pro or Ultra subscription;slk:Google AI Pro or Ultra subscription;cpos:2;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Google AI Pro or Ultra subscription<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">The first premium feature is AI Overviews, the same name as <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/ai\/15-billion-people-see-googles-ai-overviews-each-month-174526822.html\" data-i13n=\"cpos:3;pos:1\" data-ylk=\"slk:a similar feature in Google Search;cpos:3;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a similar feature in Google Search<\/a>. Gmail\u2019s version lets you ask questions about your messages in the search bar, using natural language. Google uses the example of, &#8220;Who was the plumber that gave me a quote for the bathroom renovation last year?&#8221; It\u2019s hard to imagine that saving much time over a basic search for &#8220;plumber quote&#8221; or \u201cplumbing estimate,\u201d but maybe it could help in some situations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">There&#8217;s also a free portion of AI Overviews that summarizes mail threads for easy catch-ups. However, the ability to ask your inbox questions requires a subscription.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Meanwhile, Proofread is a subscription-only feature that&#8217;s essentially <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/grammarlys-ai-writing-assistance-tools-now-work-in-five-new-languages-180432231.html\" data-i13n=\"cpos:4;pos:1\" data-ylk=\"slk:Grammarly;cpos:4;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Grammarly<\/a> for Gmail. As you&#8217;d guess, it suggests improvements in grammar, word choice, conciseness, voice and sentence structure.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Google marketing image for an AI catch-up feature coming to Gmail.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"fig-image-round\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Gmail_AI_Inbox_Image.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>AI Inbox (Google)<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Finally, there&#8217;s the AI Inbox, a feature that &#8220;filters out the clutter so you can focus on what&#8217;s most important.&#8221; Google says it&#8217;s like a personal briefing that flags to-dos and catches you up on what it thinks is most important. (It identifies VIPs based on frequent contacts, your contact list, and inferred relationships.) The company claims, without adding further detail, that this all &#8220;happens securely with the privacy protections you expect from Google.&#8221; AI Inbox is another subscription-only feature.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">Now onto the free stuff. Help Me Write is a tool for all Gmail users that generates email copy from a prompt. This kind of thing should be <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/proton-mail-now-has-a-privacy-focused-ai-writing-assistant-155816223.html\" data-i13n=\"cpos:5;pos:1\" data-ylk=\"slk:well-familiar by now;cpos:5;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">well-familiar by now<\/a>, as Big Tech increasingly encourages users to <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/ai\/whatsapp-is-the-latest-to-offer-an-ai-powered-writing-assistant-182116369.html\" data-i13n=\"cpos:6;pos:1\" data-ylk=\"slk:avoid drafting anything from scratch;cpos:6;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">avoid drafting anything from scratch<\/a>. And Suggested Replies can draft replies for you that mimic your tone and style. (Google describes it as a next-gen version of <a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/ai\/google-launches-geminis-contextual-smart-replies-in-gmail-140021232.html\" data-i13n=\"cpos:7;pos:1\" data-ylk=\"slk:Smart Replies;cpos:7;pos:1;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Smart Replies<\/a>.) Help Me Write and Suggested Replies are rolling out to everyone (no subscription required) today.<\/p>\n<p class=\"col-body mb-4 leading-7 text-[18px] md:leading-8 break-words min-w-0 charcoal-color\">The new Gemini-powered features begin rolling out to Gmail today. Although they&#8217;re starting with English speakers in the US, Google says they&#8217;ll arrive in more languages and regions &#8220;in the coming months.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a move that should surprise nobody, Google is stuffing more Gemini AI into Gmail. A host of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,11620,363,364,35932,367,11618,5891,111,139,69,62639,145],"class_list":["post-223464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-ai-overviews","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-gmail","tag-google","tag-google-ai","tag-google-search","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-subscription","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}