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Artificial intelligence

Google is giving Gmail an AI makeover

April 25, 2018

Anyone who uses Google’s prolific e-mail system is going to have an inbox augmented by slick new machine-learning tricks, as of today.

The news: Along with a neat visual redesign, Gmail has introduced a raft of new AI-enabled features—like snoozing e-mails for later, nudging users to respond to messages that need a time-sensitive response, and pre-writing replies to save valuable keystrokes.

Safety first: Security also got a refresh. (Hey, if Google is going to slurp all your data to tune its AI, that’s the least it can do.) A machine-learning algorithm checks every incoming message and alerts users to potential threats with impossible-to-miss color-coded warnings.

Why it matters: Many of these features are already available on Google’s Inbox, a Gmail app geared toward early adopters. But this new roll-out puts AI-powered tools in the hands of 1.4 billion Gmail users (yes, that’s billion). That gives Google another chance to put its massive trove of data to use, and also generate some more—something that might not be an entirely good thing.

Deep Dive

Artificial intelligence

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

Google DeepMind’s new generative model makes Super Mario–like games from scratch

Genie learns how to control games by watching hours and hours of video. It could help train next-gen robots too.

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Illustration by Rose Wong

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