- Google DeepMind has built an AI email assistant.
- It will automatically respond to messages using the user’s voice and style.
- It will sort and organize your inbox to reduce time spent on administrative duties.
Few things are more demoralizing in modern life than waking up and finding an avalanche in your inbox. Just sorting them out and determining what needs to be answered and how quickly can take up an entire day. Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, believes that AI should handle organizing and responding. He and his team are working on a plan that will embed a virtual secretary in your email so that you don’t have to sift through irrelevant sales pitches or unnecessary LinkedIn notifications.
Email has a dark side. It is a magical treasure. The world’s miraculous instant communication is plagued by spam, late-night boss demands for immediate action, and the dreaded accidentally reply-all button. Hassabis believes AI can restore the best parts of email, by handling all “mundane chores” and recommending replies instead of leaving you in despair over your triple-digit unread counts.
Hassabis He told at the recent SXSW London conference that he would happily pay a large sum of money to end this current tyranny. Not in the distant future. DeepMind wants to make email inboxes more self-managing. They want them to be able sort through messages, decide which ones are important, and write responses that sound just like you. The next annoying email won’t only not find you well but won’t even find you until the AI creates a response to your approval.
This is a brilliant marketing strategy. Many people who are rightfully concerned about the implications of AI may have a soft-spot for the technology if they can free up a few hours per week to do productive work or even spend time with their family.
You have an email utopia
Hasabbis “universal AI assistant”which is proactive and intelligent enough to act in your behalf. Instead of giving the AI regular orders and explaining your priority, the AI will be able to learn by observing how you handle a variety emails and perhaps an occasional broad description of your approach towards different types of messages. It will not only know how you respond to email, but which emails you ignore on purpose or which you just can’t figure out how to answer. “gives you more time and maybe protects your attention from other algorithms trying to gain your attention,” Hassabis described
an AI assistant of this caliber. “I believe we can use AI to serve the individual.”
This is the long-term picture. Hassabis said that we can expect AI tools to be able to recognize when to say “Thanks for following up.” I’ll look into it and get back to soon. And when to delete immediately. Everyone would appreciate an artificial intelligence that could get us to inbox zero while not losing our minds.
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Eric Hal Schwartz has been a freelance writer at TechRadar for more than 15 years. He has covered the intersection of technology and the world. He was the head writer of Voicebot.ai for five years and was at the forefront of reporting on large language models and generative AI. Since then, he has become an expert in the products of generative AI, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude. He also knows Google Gemini and all other synthetic media tools. His experience spans print, digital and broadcast media as well as live events. He’s now continuing to tell stories that people want to hear and need to know about the rapidly changing AI space and the impact it has on their lives. Eric is based out of New York City.
