Searching for a particular message in a sea of emails can be a real needle-in-haystack situation. As Gmail’s search performance hasn’t always been the best, Google is now calling upon the power of AI to better refine your results.
Google Is Adding an AI-Powered Search Feature to Gmail
Knock-knock. Who’s there? More AI. On the heels of adding a new Gemini feature to Gmail for more efficient scheduling, Google is now rolling out an AI-powered search tool for the email app. As Google’s The Keyword reports, you’ll soon be able to toggle between Most relevant and Most recent results, giving you more control over how you find and filter emails.
Previously, when searching for a message on Gmail, the platform would display a chronological list of emails matching your keywords. Now, thanks to AI analysis, you can also get search results that prioritize contacts you frequently interact with. Here’s how Google puts it:
Instead of just showing emails in chronological order based on keywords, Gmail search results now factor in elements like recency, most-clicked emails and frequent contacts. With this update, the emails you’re looking for are far more likely to be at the top of your search results — saving you valuable time and helping you find important information more easily.
For example, I was recently looking for the next delivery date for my cat’s food. When I searched using the keyword “chicken,” the first six emails that showed up were either promotional (Whole Foods, I’m looking at you) or newsletters that I rarely interact with. Midway down the page was the auto-ship notice from my pet food provider, Chewy.
While I don’t yet see the Most relevant search option in Gmail, I assume the AI tool would have deduced that I interact with emails from Chewy far more than I do with those from Whole Foods. Hence, the feature would have prioritized the email I was truly looking for closer to the top.
When to Expect Gmail’s “Most Relevant” Search Setting
If you have a personal account, you should expect to see Google’s new Most relevant search filter very soon, as the company is rolling the update out globally. The setting will be available on a browser or in the Gmail app, for both Android and iOS devices.
Google says it will roll out the feature to business accounts next.
More AI: Brought to You by Google
While I would consider this feature to be helpful, I’m still a bit hesitant to introduce more AI into my day-to-day life. At least, I want AI features to be optional tools that I can disable at my discretion. In this case, it appears that Gmail’s AI search tool will be optional. You will have the freedom to select the classic Most recent search filter, and sift through messages yourself.
That being said, I’m not sure what the default will be for Gmail. For instance, will there be an easy-to-locate button to select which search mode you’d like to use, before you carry out a search? Will the setting be hidden in the advance search options, or will it be solely adjustable after the fact? If it’s the latter, then AI will be analyzing our mail, at least once, whether we like it or not.
I want to believe that Google will give users advance control over this new AI feature that will analyze their emails. If we look at other companies’ AI tool debuts as examples, this reality seems promising. When Microsoft integrated Copilot with its Microsoft 365 apps, there was a way to opt out of the update. That said, Google isn’t always the first to respect user privacy.
