Gmail being reshaped as a proactive AI assistant, Gmail VP tells ZDNET

In an interview with ZDNET, Gmail VP of Product Blake Barnes outlined a vision to evolve Gmail into a proactive assistant system. Google is cautious about changing workflows used by roughly three billion Gmail users, and Barnes emphasized these are exploratory ideas rather than product commitments.

Barnes said basic AI features such as thread summarization and draft replies are now table stakes, and Google is aiming to redefine the inbox as a life‑management center rather than a passive message container. He described the new AI Inbox as a forward‑looking feature meant to help users understand what is most important and to provide a catch‑up view; Google is exploring personalization, natural‑language grouping, and relationship‑aware interpretation that treats messages as events and attempts to infer identity, history, intent and goals. The article also notes potential security and privacy implications.

Google is keeping AI Inbox in a separate tab out of respect for established workflows and is rolling features out slowly. Barnes told ZDNET the company must 'get the pieces in place, learn things along the way, and figure out how to do this at a scale where it works for billions of people,' and he said the work will not happen overnight.

Key Topics

Tech, Gmail, Blake Barnes, Google, Ai Inbox, Ai Assistant