Gmail users on Android and iOS are about to see a lot more AI, whether they ask for it or not. Google has started rolling out a new update that automatically generates summaries for emails in the mobile app. The summaries, powered by Gemini, will show up at the top of the message view—no tapping required.
Previously, users had to opt in by pressing a “Summarize this email” button. That’s gone. Now, Gmail will decide when a summary might be useful and insert it without prompting. Google hasn’t said exactly what criteria it uses to trigger a summary, but the company hints it’s targeting long messages or email threads with multiple replies. In practice, it’s likely going to be a low bar. Google’s been eager to boost user engagement with its AI tools across its entire product line.
These summaries will take the form of short bullet points designed to capture the gist of the email thread. While they might save time, they also sit at the very top of the screen, bumping the actual content of your inbox further down—similar to how Google’s AI answers now dominate search results.
This change applies to English-language emails and is being rolled out gradually over the next two weeks. It’s coming to all paid Workspace accounts and users with Google’s AI Premium plan. Whether free Gmail users will get it isn’t clear, but it’s not hard to imagine that becoming the default for everyone soon. The web version of Gmail could follow suit at any time.
Summarization has been one of the more practical uses of generative AI ever since transformer models were first introduced back in 2017. It works reasonably well in a controlled context like an email thread. But there’s a fair question to ask: how often do you actually need a summary of something short enough to skim?
If you’re not into having your emails recapped by a chatbot, there is a way out—but it comes with a tradeoff. The summaries are tied to Gmail’s broader “smart features” setting. Turning those off will disable the auto-summaries, but it’ll also cut off things like Smart Compose, Smart Reply, package tracking, and priority notifications. And once disabled, the app will periodically prompt you to turn them back on.
By default, smart features are enabled for most users globally. However, in Europe and Japan, the feature is off until users opt in. If you’re managing your own account or an organization’s, the toggle can be found in Gmail settings under your account preferences.
In short, AI summaries in Gmail are here. Whether they help or just get in the way is something you’ll find out soon enough.
