Edgar Cervantes/Android Authority
long story short
- Google is reportedly preparing an email summary feature for the Gmail app for Android.
- For Workspace users, this may be a more powerful version of Gemini’s email thread summary feature.
One of the most common features of generative AI is summarization, which allows users to get summaries of articles, documents, and even audio recordings and phone calls. However, Google appears to be preparing to offer email summarization functionality in the Gmail app.
piumica.com and code detective Assembly debugging Reports claim that Google is preparing to add a “Summary this email” button to the Gmail app on Android. A hint related to this feature was discovered in v2024.03.31.621006929 of the Gmail app. Check out the screenshot below, showing the relevant (but inactive) button below the email header.
It’s worth mentioning that Google already allows email snippets for people using its Gemini for Workspace suite. However, Google’s support page notes that this feature is only available on desktop and is limited to email threads with more than two replies, rather than individual emails. This is apparently an enterprise feature as well, while the “Summary this email” button is ostensibly available to consumers.
Still, this is a useful feature for Gmail on smartphones, especially for extremely long or information-dense messages. But I wish Google would make this an on-device AI feature on supported phones like the Pixel 8 series. This will allow you to generate email summaries for flights and other situations where data cannot be guaranteed, while still protecting privacy.