Gmail Brings in AI to Type Out Simple Responses

It’s no secret that artificial intelligence is the technology of the future. While many still see it as the stuff of dystopian nightmares, artificial intelligence is certainly not dangerous when used right. It’s actually quite useful and it can take away a lot of mundane nuisances from our lives, to be honest. And seeing as how Google has been widely experimenting with it and plans to integrate it in the newest version of their mobile operating system, Android O, it seems that AI might even be the tech of the very near future.

Speaking of Google’s AI endeavors, they’re at it again, and this time it has to do with Gmail, their amazingly successful emailing service. The new feature has been implemented as of now, and it’s called Smart Reply. Let’s take a look at it and see how it works.

Smart Reply AI for Gmail Mobile

The future is available for mobile users on both Android and iOS, and it consists of a selection of three automated replies. The three alternatives vary from email to email because they are generated according to the message’s content. Although the feature is still not fully optimized, the answers it provides for various emails seem to be quite natural and genuine.

For example, for an email reading “What do you want to order tonight, pizza or Chinese food?”, the three automatically generated responses are “Either is fine for me”, “I don’t know” or “I’m fine with either”. These types of responses might seem vague, but remember that the AI can’t read your culinary preferences unless it’s specifically set up to do so. This is actually a pretty good idea for a future update of the feature: allow the Smart Reply feature to learn stuff about each individual user.