Google Brings Gmail to the Gemini Era With AI Overviews Integration and a New Inbox

Google is rolling out a major set of Gemini-powered artificial intelligence (AI) features in Gmail. Announced on Thursday, the Mountain View-based tech giant said these new capabilities bring Gmail to the “Gemini era.” The most notable is the integration of AI Overviews, which now powers the search experience and email summaries in threads with large numbers of replies. Google also introduced a new AI-powered inbox where users will automatically see their priority emails and to-do lists. A couple of AI features have also been expanded to non-paying Gmail users.

Gmail Gets New AI Features

In a blog post, the tech giant introduced several new AI features for its email client. While most of them are only available to Google AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers, two features have been expanded to everyone. The new features are initially rolling out in the US in the English language and will be expanded to more regions and languages in the coming months.

One of the headline additions is AI Overviews, which will now power two key features within Gmail. First, it will answer natural-language questions about the inbox in a small box right underneath the search bar — similar to how it shows up in Google Search. With this, users no longer have to focus on keyword-based searches or scrolling through their emails to find the information, as a plain-worded query will surface the relevant email. Second is summarising long email threads into key points.

Notably, the email summarising capability will be rolling out to all users; however, the natural-language search is only available to Google's AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers. This is also available in the US, currently.

Apart from this, the tech giant is also adding new tools focused on email composition and replies. Help Me Write is a drafting tool that generates or refines email text based on a simple prompt or the context of an ongoing conversation. Alongside this, Gmail will offer Suggested Replies, an evolution of classic Smart Reply functionality, which proposes quick, context-aware responses that users can edit before sending. Both features are being made available to all users at no cost, while a new Proofread feature with advanced grammar and tone suggestions remains behind Google's paid AI plans.

Google is also trialling a new AI Inbox view that acts more like a proactive assistant than a traditional list of messages. It appears above the old Inbox tab, and shows high-priority emails and to-dos that require a user's urgent attention, such as an upcoming meeting, important bills, or key conversations. To do this, Gemini analyses the content of the emails, but Google maintains that this processing occurs securely with privacy protections offered by the company. The AI Inbox is being made available first to a group of trusted testers, with wider rollout expected in the coming months.